Week 3 Flex Rankings: The Need for Shaheed

My favorite fantasy football league that I play in is a Roto league. Yes, there are Roto leagues in fantasy football. This league counts passing yards, rushing yards, and receiving yards as categories. It also has categories for passing average, rushing average, and receiving average. A player like Brandon Aiyuk (75 receptions, 1,342 receiving yards, 17.9 yards per catch) was more valuable last year than A.J. Brown (106 receptions, 1,456 receiving yards, 13.7 yards per catch). The tradeoff of Aiyuk’s 4.2 yards per catch advantage was worth more than the extra 114 yards Brown provided throughout the season. By the way, if someone could create an algorithm to quantify this for me, I would be eternally grateful.

This format may seem strange to most fantasy players, especially those who have picked up the hobby recently. More and more leagues employ PPR scoring than ever before, and this league is sort of an anti-PPR format in that respect. But this league also paid for most of my wedding, so go ahead and scoff.

When I updated my Flex rankings before Week 1, I ranked Rashid Shaheed outside the top 100 overall. If I were doing preseason Roto rankings, Shaheed would have been higher. Shaheed flashed the ability to make big plays last year. However, consistency was an issue. Shaheed played in 15 games in 2023 and was about as “all or nothing” as you can get. He had 63 or more yards six times and scored a touchdown in five of those six. But Shaheed had 36 or fewer yards nine times and did not score in any of those games. The result was five weekly finishes inside the top 20 and 10 weekly finishes outside the top 50. Fast forward to this year. Shaheed enters Week 3 as the overall WR7 in Half-PPR scoring. But how much has his situation changed when compared to last year?

In general, Shaheed is much more involved in the Saints’ offense than he was a year ago. Shaheed played on 57.5 percent of offensive snaps last year. That number is up to 67.2 percent this season. And his 23.1-percent target share is significantly higher than last year’s 15 percent mark. At the same time, Shaheed has only run 36 routes and has been targeted nine times in two games. For reference, Amari Cooper has run 89 routes and has 17 targets.

Part of Shaheed’s lack of volume stems from New Orleans cruising to two early victories. The Saints have led by at least 16 points for the entire second half in both of their games so far. That has reduced the need to pass the ball very often. The good news is that Shaheed should see more volume going forward. The bad news is that will likely be accompanied by a corresponding decrease in efficiency. I think it is fair to say that my preseason rank of Shaheed at WR59 will probably end up being too low. But I think it is also fair to say that Shaheed will not finish the year as a WR1. Then again, with all of the injuries befalling the position, who knows?

Shaheed certainly has a matchup in Week 3 that new Saints offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak can exploit. The Philadelphia Eagles have allowed the third-most fantasy points to opposing wide receivers through two weeks. They also allowed the most fantasy points to the position a year ago. Kubiak is using pre-snap motion to identify mismatches in coverage. He is also using the play-action pass to take shots down the field. Such was the case with Shaheed’s 70-yard touchdown last week. I currently have Rashid Shaheed ranked as my overall WR27 and at 62 overall in my Week 3 Flex rankings.

Below you will find the rest of my Week 3 Flex rankings. As always, these are based on Half-PPR scoring. They are also subject to change between now and Sunday. I will update these rankings on Sunday morning here.

Check out all of our Week 3 Rankings: QB | RB | WR | TE | Flex

Week 3 Flex Rankings for Fantasy Football

Make sure to check out all of our Week 3 Fantasy Football Rankings and Analysis!