Fantasy Football Take-Shopping: Predicting Josh Allen’s Top Target for 2024

The Bills’ pass-catching corps is in transition. With Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis leaving the team this offseason, Buffalo will enter 2024 without its top two receiving yardage earners and its first- and third-most-targeted players.

Surprisingly, these departures could be a springboard for growth and evolution rather than a catastrophic setback for the Bills’ offense.

Diggs has been an elite receiver in this league for a while now, but last year he didn’t separate vertically on film at the same level as in his previous seasons. We know his impact on the offensive game plan waned in the second half of the year and there was some general dissatisfaction between player and team. The Diggs trade to Buffalo was a huge success for both parties, but it was probably time for a parting of ways. As for Davis, while he has had highlights in big games, he’s a replacement-level starting receiver whose inconsistency has somewhat miscast him as one of the team’s top targets.

So while these are losses and seeing players walk out the door doesn’t make you better, you only make yourself worse by not responding to departures with new additions and/or developing young players on your roster. The Bills have welcomed newcomers and some youth who have been allowed to marinate on the team over the past two seasons. The question is how those players will relate to the open roles on the team and where the targets will be distributed.

Let’s dive into some potential answers by looking at each of the Bills’ receiving options, starting with the holdovers before analyzing the newcomers. Any offense with an elite quarterback like Josh Allen is still going to be a strong unit, so getting its pass-catching sequence correct is essential.

The second-year tight end should be the favorite to lead the team in targets. His 60th overall consensus ADP in early Yahoo drafts is the highest among any Bills wide receiver or tight end.

Kincaid is coming off a solid rookie season at a position that typically doesn’t lend itself to Year 1 production. He was ninth among all tight ends in targets, completing 82 percent of his looks. He was a reliable receiver for Allen as a rookie who showed good hands on quick-option routes.

Some of the under-the-hood stats reveal areas where he needs to improve to take the next step as a prospect. Among tight ends with 75-plus targets, Kincaid ranked near the middle or bottom of the list in yards per route run (1.59) and first downs per route run (0.068), according to Fantasy Points Data. Part of that is because he wasn’t a featured receiver, with a first-read target share of just 17.9%, and he also wasn’t deployed on downfield routes. At least one of those things will have to change to facilitate a significant breakout.

Among that same group of 75-plus target tight ends, Kincaid’s 60.6% slot route rate, per PFF, was the highest. When Dawson Knox returned from injury in Week 14 via the AFC Divisional Round, Kincaid averaged a 57% snap share. Those two things are related. Kincaid will need to more fully replace Knox, who has a multi-year extension with the team, in more traditional tight end duties if he wants to be a true featured receiver for this Bills offense in the vein of a Travis Kelce or Mark Andrews-type at that position. That’s especially true when you consider that nearly all of the top wide receivers on this team would be candidates for some slot work.

All of this is possible if Kincaid emerges as an improved player who has taken the next step in Year 2. Gradual growth is typically the expectation at the position, and Kincaid is already ahead of the curve based on his performance as a rookie. I don’t see it as a certainty, but if anyone is going to push for 120-plus targets on this team, Kincaid is the best bet given both his pedigree and the fact that he already has a year of work baked into him with Allen.

We have to include Cook in this comparison because he took a significant step as a passing down weapon in his second NFL season. Cook’s 0.20 targets per route run was third on the team, behind only Diggs and Kincaid.

More interesting was how Cook was targeted. The Bills running back had a 2.4 aDOT in 2023, leading all players at the position with at least 50 targets. It may not seem like much, but even the best receiving running backs typically have a much lower aDOT — less than 1.0 or even negative. Cook and Saquon Barkley are the only ones with aDOT above 2.0 over the past two years.

If Cook remains a large part of the receiving hierarchy (and given how important his role was last year, there’s no reason to believe he’ll be phased out), that’ll matter to the wide receiver projections on this team.

Khalil Shakir is the only holdover wide receiver who played a significant role last year. I was a fan of Shakir as a sleeper in the 2022 NFL Draft and was happy to see him develop a solid reputation as a reliable target in a good offense.

The question is, what else can he offer, aside from the good work we’ve seen so far?

Shakir ran 78.1% of his routes from the slot last season and checked in with an 8.6 aDOT. I personally think Shakir has shown the ability to man-coverage-beating since his time at Boise State, which could translate into more snaps outside. He has also shown up for crucial plays in the intermediate zone. Again, this is all just my evaluation of him as a player, but I see him as a reliable slotlargely but no slot-only player.

Curtis Samuel is the most interesting of the new pass-catchers. Samuel is an underrated player who is best suited to operate as a No. 2 receiver. He had his best year in the NFL under current Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady in Carolina during the 2020 season. He then signed with Washington in free agency, but was held back by injuries and a quarterback play.

However, when Samuel is fit, he has long shown that he can separate well and get open against man-to-man and zone coverage.

Samuel’s positioning will be especially crucial to solve. He’s spent time as a slot and gadget receiver during his career, but began his time in Carolina as an outside winger. Samuel’s strength is beating man coverage on isolated routes, which helps his case as an outside receiver. He’s probably not an X-receiver candidate, but neither is Shakir. That could make their positions overlap a bit, but as much as I like Shakir as a role player, Samuel is a superior talent.

I expect the 27-year-old to have one of his best NFL campaigns and lead the Bills wide receiver room in yards. He’s a good fit with Josh Allen and of all the receivers on this list, he bears the most resemblance to Diggs as a route runner.

The rookie out of FSU was a quality, if somewhat flawed, prospect in the 2024 NFL Draft. Keon Coleman’s strengths are easy to spot. He’s a massive target with strong hands who thrives against zone coverage and is flexible enough to win routes over the middle of the field. The weaknesses are just as pronounced; Coleman didn’t separate from man coverage at FSU and isn’t a vertical threat.

Most of the prospects who came into their scouting report with these issues and have been successful in the NFL have moved from outside receiver to slot, which is an interesting fit for this team considering the other options on the roster.

At least, that doesn’t seem to be how the team views the player. GM Brandon Beane indicated in the post-draft press conference that Coleman’s primary position would be as an X-receiver. From a size perspective, that makes sense compared to Samuel and Shakir, but it’s also not the best way to maximize him. Of course, these comments are not binding.

I think Coleman will eventually move into a flanker/big slot role, but that could be a while. When you see him getting more reps off the line and inside, that’s when you want to get his stock up.

The Castoff Crew

So if Coleman isn’t going to be the Bills’ full-season X-receiver, who will? This is the least interesting part of the discussion, but it’s worth remembering that the Bills added three big receiver castoffs, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Chase Claypool and Mack Hollins, to the roster this offseason.

I think those three are in contention for a spot on this list given where they are at this point in their careers. However, I’m a bit obsessed with the idea of ​​the “sacrificial X receiver” in today’s NFL and my antenna is open to that theory when I look at the Bills’ depth chart.

As teams implement more pre- and on-the-snap motion and generally do more than ever to maximize their best receivers, top targets are being played in the slot or winger positions. To do that, you need a receiver who can do the thankless job of running routes from the perimeter to stretch the defense. That player isn’t going to get the ball very often, and they aren’t particularly efficient targets. However, their presence does allow the coaching staff to free up other players and to conceptually execute plays well.

With so many of the Bills’ best players candidates for slot and off-the-line work as wingers, it’s worth wondering whether any of these bigger wideouts will end up playing more than we think — at least early in the season. That player won’t matter individually in fantasy, but their role could be crucial in solving the mystery of how playing time is distributed for Samuel, Shakir and Coleman.

No one reading this piece is going to like that as a final thought, but often a player like this ends up in the receiver room picture. That’s especially true for a pass-catching corps like the Bills, which lacks a true alpha but has a number of quality pieces. We typically see situations like this end with a variety of players in the 70-90 range, but no one above 110. If I had to guess, that’s how I see this playing out for Buffalo in 2024.