Khalil Shakir — Week 1: Nineteen and Sixteen, Then Three and Two
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
Shakir caught four of six targets for forty yards, and the day split in half: nineteen yards deep middle with twenty-five seconds left in the first quarter and sixteen on second and fifteen to open the second, then three and two after halftime. The two incompletions were first and one from the Houston one and third and four from the Houston fourteen, the throw that kept Buffalo to a field goal with 10:41 left, in a 36–31 win over the Texans.
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Third and four at the Houston 14, 10 41 left in the fourth quarter, Buffalo down 27 to 28. Josh Allen threw short right for Khalil Shakir, incomplete, with Sheldon Rankins credited on the play, and Tyler Bass kicked a 33-yard field goal for a 30 to 28 lead that lasted about four minutes. The incompletion was worth −1.4 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and seven points of win probability, the biggest negative in Shakir's day.
The line: six targets, four catches, 40 yards, no touchdowns, +0.5 expected points on the targets. The first two catches were the good ones. First and 10 from the Buffalo 38 with 25 seconds left in the first quarter, Bills down seven to three: deep middle, 19 yards to the Houston 43. Then, on the same drive's first series of the second quarter, second and 15 from the Houston 48, the distance a product of an ineligible-man penalty: short right, 16 yards to the 32, and Allen scrambled in for the lead three plays later. After that the catches were three yards on second and nine from the Buffalo 15 two yards on third and 12 at the Houston 18, the play before the 34-yard field goal in the third. The other incompletion was first and one from the Houston one with four oh five left in the half, short right, and Allen sneaked in on the next snap. He also took a lateral from Keon Coleman for 10 yards on the first-quarter third and 12, and had a 10-yard catch in the third quarter wiped out by a holding penalty; neither is in his line.
Six targets tied him with Dalton Kincaid for second on the team behind DJ Moore's eight, and Buffalo's passing game was in effect two receivers: Moore and Kincaid had a hundred and a hundred 30 yards and every completion of 35 or more, and Shakir's 40 were next. Three targets in each half. Two of his six came on third down, one caught, and the one he did not catch ended the drive at the 14.
Back in June the preview's question on Shakir was whether a 30-eighth-place season among wide receivers had rested on a repeatable target share or a quieter efficiency spike. Sunday's share was real, six of 29 throws, and the efficiency after halftime was two catches for five yards. That is one afternoon in an offense that had just added DJ Moore, and it does not settle the share question either way. Buffalo is home to the Lions on Thursday the seventeenth. Watch whether six is the number or the ceiling.
_Data via nflverse._
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