Rashid Shaheed

Shaheed burst onto the scene in 2022 as an undrafted, 24-year-old rookie out of Weber State, with a slew of splash plays and impressive kick returns in the first half of the season eventually landing him a larger role in the Saints offense over the final six weeks. He caught 22 of 26 targets for 377 yards (14.5 YPT) and a TD in that six-week stretch, doing more than enough to enter 2023 as the No. 3 receiver behind Chris Olave and Michael Thomas. Unfortunately for fantasy managers, Shaheed's role didn't change much when Thomas went down with a season-ending ankle injury. He still played 50-75 percent of snaps most weeks, and was pure boom/bust with the five games in which he scored touchdowns also producing his five best yardage totals for the year. While there was inevitable regression from his near-impossible 2022 efficiency, Shaheed caught 61.3 percent of his targets for 15.3 yards per catch and a still-impressive 9.6 YPT. Less impressive was his target rate, with Shaheed's 16.9 percent (75 targets on 444 routes) ranking 65th out of the 115 WRs with 200 or more routes. The Saints moved on from Thomas this offseason and didn't have cap space for big free-agent additions, so there is some chance Shaheed takes another step forward in terms of target rate/share, even if the more likely outcome is that he remains a medium-volume deep threat whose strong work as a kick and punt returner makes him more valuable to the Saints than to fantasy teams.