Khalil
Shakir.
Khalil
Shakir.
Boise St.· 6'0"· 196 lb· 4.43s 40
Boise State used Shakir as a movable piece rather than a fixed receiver, lining him up in the slot, out wide, in the backfield and in jet motion. The through-line in every alignment is short-area quickness with the ball in his hands: he wins on option routes, snapping off breaks with low footwork and turning upfield in one step instead of gathering.
The secondary trait is contact balance after the catch. He absorbs the first arm tackle and keeps churning, which is why screens and swing touches became real yardage. He is a willing perimeter blocker and a hands catcher away from his frame. The athletic ceiling is good rather than rare, and the signature is versatility — one player moved anywhere to find a matchup.
Quick-game, spread passing attack that lives on option routes, motion and manufactured touches for its slot receiver.
Year 1: third receiver and designated third-down target on option and shallow routes. Ceiling: high-volume starting slot who leads a playoff offense in receptions.
A heavy-condensed, outside-iso passing game that asks its receivers to beat press coverage and win contested balls on the boundary.
His value scales directly with how much motion and pre-snap movement the offense uses.
Khalil Shakir 2021 Full Season Highlights | Boise State WR
Full senior-season reel: option routes, jet sweeps and catch-and-run production.
Khalil Shakir Senior Highlights Boise State
School-produced cutup showing his alignment versatility across the formation.
MW Moments: Khalil Shakir, Boise State
Conference feature on his signature plays and All-Mountain West seasons.
Shakir entered the 2022 class as a four-year Boise State contributor who had done a little of everything: receiver, runner, returner, occasional passer. At a shade under six feet and 196 pounds he was never going to be a boundary X, but the football identity was clean — a quick-twitch slot who plays faster than his testing because he wastes no motion at the top of routes.
The production was steady and then explosive: 16 catches as a true freshman, 63 for 872 as a sophomore, 52 for 719 in a seven-game 2020, and a 77-catch, 1,117-yard senior season that earned a second straight first-team All-Mountain West nod. He finished with 208 receptions and 2,878 receiving yards across 43 games while adding carries, punt returns and kick returns. The flags were the ones you would expect: a Group of Five defensive schedule, a thin frame against press, and limited evidence of winning contested balls outside the numbers.
The board consensus had him as a Day 3 slot with starter upside, usually in the fourth-to-fifth range, and Buffalo taking him 148th overall read as good value for a team that needed cheap, dependable underneath targets around Josh Allen. The call was less about upside than about certainty: a player who would not drop the ball and could be trusted on third down early.
- 01
Route quickness
snaps off option and choice routes with low pad level and no wasted gather step, separating late against both zone triggers and man coverage from the slot.
- 02
Reliable hands
plucks away from his frame and finishes through contact, a trait that showed up immediately in the NFL with a league-leading catch rate in his second season.
- 03
Yards after catch
absorbs the first arm tackle and keeps his legs churning, turning screens, swings and shallow crossers into first downs rather than two-yard gains.
- 04
Alignment versatility
legitimate reps in the slot, out wide, in the backfield and on jet motion, plus punt and kick return work, giving a coordinator real formation flexibility.
- 05
Competitive toughness
willing perimeter blocker who finishes, and a four-year captain-type presence whose teammates and coaching staff leaned on him in every phase.
- 01
Frame and press
at 196 pounds he can be rerouted by physical corners who get hands on him at the line, which limits his snaps as a true outside receiver.
- 02
Vertical ceiling
good long speed rather than rare, so he does not consistently threaten the top of a defense or win clean on go routes against starting corners.
- 03
Contested catch volume
very little tape of him winning 50-50 balls above defenders, with most of his production coming from separation and manufactured touches.
- 04
Level of competition
a Mountain West schedule with limited reps against NFL-caliber press corners left projection questions about the jump in coverage quality.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.43sp50
- Vertical
- 34.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 124inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.28sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.21sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Boise State | 10 | 16 | 170 | 1 |
| 2019 | Boise State | 14 | 63 | 872 | 6 |
| 2020 | Boise State | 7 | 52 | 719 | 6 |
| 2021 | Boise State | 12 | 77 | 1117 | 7 |
| Career | — | 43 | 208 | 2878 | 20 |
Receiving verified against cfbstats (2020-2021) and ESPN season logs (2018-2019); season sums match the career line. Shakir also carried 71 times for 414 yards and four scores and returned punts and kickoffs, but those splits are kept out of the receiving table.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Dependable, high-catch-rate interior target who becomes a quarterback's safety valve without ever being a burner.
Pro Bowl volume slot who lived on option routes and third-down separation rather than size or speed.
Gadget slot and returner who contributes on special teams and manufactured touches but never earns a full-time role.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Buffalo brought him along slowly. Shakir was a rotational piece as a rookie in 2022, playing 14 games with 10 catches for 161 yards and one touchdown. The role opened in 2023: he started ten games, caught 39 of 45 targets for 611 yards and two scores, and posted the best catch rate of any receiver in the league that season before adding playoff touchdowns. With Stefon Diggs traded and Gabe Davis gone in 2024, he became Buffalo's leading receiver with 76 catches for 821 yards and four touchdowns, and along the way set a record with 30 consecutive targets caught. He led the team again in 2025 with 72 for 719, and Buffalo signed him to a four-year, $60.2 million extension through 2029 in February 2025.
In hindsight the fifth round looks like a bargain, and the reason is that the traits scouts flagged as limits never mattered much in the role he ended up playing. Buffalo never asked him to be an outside X or win jump balls; it asked him to be open on third down and to make the first defender miss, and he has done that for four seasons. The honest caveat is that he is a high-floor complement rather than an offense-tilting number one — the Bills' passing game has drifted toward short, YAC-driven throws partly because it lacks a downfield alternative. That is a roster problem, not an indictment: at pick 148 you are hoping for a rotational body and Buffalo got a four-year starter.