Keon Coleman success by route - Not pretty

[Norcalbillsfan]

3 hours ago, ddaryl said:

I never thought as Coleman as a #1. I thought of him as a big reciever who would be solid with contested catches

I do not understand who thought Coleman as a #1 WR, or why they would.

That being said he has failed to make the step up and become a reliable target.

I've always thought beane intended for him to be a high up side bigger more athletic Gabe Davis role with red zone jump ball skills. Not when they wanted Gabe to be a #2 but when he was more of a #3 and made big sideline catches on scrambles and roll outs. But unfortunately keon hasn't looked great in any of the things he did well in college.

[HappyDays]

12 minutes ago, The Frankish Reich said:

Isn't that what you'd expect from the slot guy, who is going to be schemed open a lot more than he's going to flat-out beat his man?

Shakir is doing his job, and particularly after the catch.

 

I don't mean this as a criticism but Shakir is overrated by Bills fans. I don't want to say he's a gadget player, that's probably too reductive for the role he plays, but he's definitely a specialty weapon more than a normal WR. Bills fans talk about him like he's a legit slot WR and I even still see occasional comments that we should use him more outside and/or on deep routes. Neither of those roles are really his skill set though. He does his one niche thing extremely well, arguably better than any skill player in the NFL. Very good hands too. But he is not a natural route runner/separator. It's not like when we had "3rd and Beasley" where you could pretty much always expect him to get open on critical downs. And we've seen a couple times this year where Shakir needed to make a slightly difficult (but routine by NFL standards) sideline catch and he couldn't finish.

 

I used this comparison before, can't remember if it was in this thread or another one, but to me the closest analog to Shakir is Xavier Worthy. Not because they share the same skill set but because they're both specialty players who immediately become less valuable when you're forcing them to do normal WR things on a down to down basis. KC was forced to use Worthy as a more traditional WR last year and it didn't go very well. The same is happening with Shakir this year.

 

I heard someone on WGR say Shakir in every game either gets 4 receptions for 38 yards and 0 TDs or 4 receptions for 90 yards and 1 TD. I thought that was pretty astute. When he breaks one for a TD that's when he becomes valuable, but that's the absolute ceiling of what he can provide and you never see him just dominate his matchup defender. He really needs better options around him to draw attention so he can just live in his niche.

[Jauronimo]

23 minutes ago, Rubes said:

 

 

With that one and the second one, you'd almost conclude that Coleman and DK Metcalf are just about the same...

 

And Dotson who is small framed speedster.  Weird.

[Comebackkid]

35 minutes ago, dakarider17 said:

Steve Smith just did a video about Coleman and he has no field awareness of the defense, he basically walks right into coverage

a lot of times routes lead right into coverage...not just colemans.

cant remember what game but i commented all the dbs have to do is stand there and routes were  going right to them

[Mikie2times]

3 hours ago, Chicken Boo said:

Inexplicably, Troy Franklin slipped to the 4th round.  

This is what bothers me more than even the lack of first round investment. You have well known draft picks like Franklin and Horton who clearly have a skill set we don't as far being able to stretch the field and it wasn't even worth a late flyer. 

[NewEra]

6 minutes ago, Mikie2times said:

This is what bothers me more than even the lack of first round investment. You have well known draft picks like Franklin and Horton who clearly have a skill set we don't as far being able to stretch the field and it wasn't even worth a late flyer. 

I agree-  I was hoping for both guys.  
 

If we drafted Horton, we wouldn’t have Walker.  As much as I loved (and still love Horton), I’ll take Walker based on what we’ve seen from him so far

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

5 hours ago, DJB said:

 

Yup he still stinks 

looms like Shakir is the literal definition of Mid!! 

[BullBuchanan]

15 minutes ago, Mikie2times said:

This is what bothers me more than even the lack of first round investment. You have well known draft picks like Franklin and Horton who clearly have a skill set we don't as far being able to stretch the field and it wasn't even worth a late flyer. 

Troy Franklin? What has he done that's special? He has less production than Coleman.

[Mikie2times]

7 minutes ago, BullBuchanan said:

Troy Franklin? What has he done that's special? He has less production than Coleman.

If by less catches, less yards, and less TD's you mean more, than you're correct. That's just this year, but since he was a 4th round pick and not a borderline 1st, he wasn't given a starting role. He can also stretch the field. Straight up he's better, has a brighter future, skillset, and was acquired for way less. 

[BullBuchanan]

9 minutes ago, Mikie2times said:

If by less catches, less yards, and less TD's you mean more, than you're correct. That's just this year, but since he was a 4th round pick and not a borderline 1st, he wasn't given a starting role. He can also stretch the field. Straight up he's better, has a brighter future, skillset, and was acquired for way less. 

What is a "borderline 1st"? You could have just said 2nd round pick. He has a long, long way to go for the kind of glazing you're giving him. He just had the best game of his career where he went off for *checks notes*...89 yards.

Edited 2 hours ago by BullBuchanan

[Mikie2times]

Just now, BullBuchanan said:

What is a "borderline 1st"? You could have just said 2nd round pick. He has a long, long way to go for the kind of glazing you're giving him.

I'm not saying Franklin is a stud by any means when I say he is better than Coleman. 

[Gilberto]

Summing up 43 pages... by almost every metric, Coleman has been a disappointment and is being out performed by many WR's drafted in later rounds. 

[nedboy7]

About to drink wine midday.  I hope you all are ***** happy!  

 

So by that chart Tee Higgins cant separate?   Really?  

Edited 2 hours ago by nedboy7

[strive_for_five_guy]

5 minutes ago, Gilberto said:

Summing up 43 pages... by almost every metric, Coleman has been a disappointment and is being out performed by many WR's drafted in later rounds. 

But how do these other guys stack up against him on the basketball court?

[BullBuchanan]

6 hours ago, DJB said:

 

Yup he still stinks 

If you want to base your whole opinion off one graph on twitter, I guess DK Metcalf and Tee Higgins stink too.

[Chicken Boo]

44 minutes ago, BullBuchanan said:

What is a "borderline 1st"? You could have just said 2nd round pick. He has a long, long way to go for the kind of glazing you're giving him. He just had the best game of his career where he went off for *checks notes*...89 yards.

 

... and 2 TDs.  Don't leave that part out.

[Brianmoorman4jesus]

2 hours ago, The Frankish Reich said:

Isn't that what you'd expect from the slot guy, who is going to be schemed open a lot more than he's going to flat-out beat his man?

Shakir is doing his job, and particularly after the catch. Keon sometimes is called on to beat his man one-on-one, and it just almost never happens.

I was a Keon defender last year, since I thought he showed signs of emerging. I've officially given up on him.

Well, yeah, but that wasn't the way it was with peak Diggs.

So basically you're just saying that Coleman isn't even in the same league as a true #1 receiver. He's not even in the same league as peak Gabe Davis. Which is to say: a disappointment, even at 33.

He’s absolutely no even close. He’s nowhere near the best WR on our own team. Shakir is by a mile 

[Pecker]

On 5/16/2025 at 9:05 PM, DJB said:

And for reference here is Ladd who many of us vouched for 

 

 

Coleman needs to step up or Beane massively screwed this one up 

This was painfully obvious pre draft.  All I did was watch about 20 mins of YouTube on these two guys. Not rocket science 

[Mikie2times]

22 minutes ago, Chicken Boo said:

 

... and 2 TDs.  Don't leave that part out.

 

40 minutes ago, BullBuchanan said:

If you want to base your whole opinion off one graph on twitter, I guess DK Metcalf and Tee Higgins stink too.

You wouldn't trade Franklin for Coleman straight up?

[BADOLBILZ]

1 hour ago, HappyDays said:

 

I don't mean this as a criticism but Shakir is overrated by Bills fans. I don't want to say he's a gadget player, that's probably too reductive for the role he plays, but he's definitely a specialty weapon more than a normal WR. Bills fans talk about him like he's a legit slot WR and I even still see occasional comments that we should use him more outside and/or on deep routes. Neither of those roles are really his skill set though. He does his one niche thing extremely well, arguably better than any skill player in the NFL. Very good hands too. But he is not a natural route runner/separator. It's not like when we had "3rd and Beasley" where you could pretty much always expect him to get open on critical downs. And we've seen a couple times this year where Shakir needed to make a slightly difficult (but routine by NFL standards) sideline catch and he couldn't finish.

 

I used this comparison before, can't remember if it was in this thread or another one, but to me the closest analog to Shakir is Xavier Worthy. Not because they share the same skill set but because they're both specialty players who immediately become less valuable when you're forcing them to do normal WR things on a down to down basis. KC was forced to use Worthy as a more traditional WR last year and it didn't go very well. The same is happening with Shakir this year.

 

I heard someone on WGR say Shakir in every game either gets 4 receptions for 38 yards and 0 TDs or 4 receptions for 90 yards and 1 TD. I thought that was pretty astute. When he breaks one for a TD that's when he becomes valuable, but that's the absolute ceiling of what he can provide and you never see him just dominate his matchup defender. He really needs better options around him to draw attention so he can just live in his niche.

 

 

Yeah to me, one of the things most Bills fans seem to misunderstand about Shakir is he is NOT an instinctive, reliable route runner like Beasley was.   If he were,  Allen would be feeding him non-stop.   He doesn't have complete faith in Shakir that way and you can't throw the ball over the middle to a small target if you don't have complete faith that you will be on the same page. 

 

When Diggs and Davis were outside in 2023 it wasn't exactly Air Coryell but defense's couldn't just focus on one area of the field and were often doubling Diggs and putting CB1 on Davis.   That left some huge holes in the middle of the field for Shakir back in 2023.   It created this misconception that he was one of those "always open" types.  

 

Defense's are squatting in those areas where he was thriving back then.  So they are forced to throw a lot of really short passes to get the ball in his hands so they can get that high end RAC out of him.