Fantasy Football: Rashid Shaheed emerging as great deep-league option

Just about halfway through the 2023 NFL season, we are just about at the halfway point in terms of fantasy. And this late in the season, there's nothing better than being able to find a productive guy in a deep fantasy format.

The New Orleans Saints have a player on their roster who is capable of being that guy.

Savvy fantasy football players have likely already discovered Rashid Shaheed, but as you scour your waiver wire this week, take a look and see if he's out there.

It's easy to overlook guys like Shaheed as they come into the league. He went undrafted after playing at Weber State, a school certainly not known for its football. He was released ahead of the start of the season as a rookie last year, but was signed to the team's practice squad. He was called up from there in October 2022 and has risen the ranks of the depth chart since.

The Saints have Chris Olave and Michael Thomas firmly entrenched as their top two receivers, but Shaheed is easily the team's best deep threat and Derek Carr is making sure he takes advantage of that. On Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts, Shaheed caught three passes for 153 yards and a touchdown.

He was only targeted three times in the passing game and on each one, he was able to get behind the Indianapolis secondary to finish the game with a ridiculous 51 yards per catch. Though Olave and Thomas will eat up most of the targets, there will still be a place for Shaheed in deep 14 or 16-team leagues to sue as a bye week fill-in.

Now that Carr and Shaheed have begun to establish this connection, you can bet they are going to take a deep shot to him at least once per game.

For context on how well Shaheed is playing as a true deep threat, take a look at this statistic.

Tyreek Hill is the fastest player in the NFL. There's a really strong argument right now that Shaheed is number two.

If you already have him on your roster, good for you. If you don't, get on your waiver wire right now and see if you can find him. If you are in a dynasty format, this is a guy you might still be able to buy fairly low on and if you can, I would.