Saints: National media praises former undrafted free agent
The New Orleans Saints got a steal at the wide receiver position in the sixth round when they took A.T. Perry out of Wake Forest. Throwing him in the mix with Michael Thomas, Chris Olave, and Bryan Edwards gives the Saints some viable threats in the passing game. There's another weapon that New Orleans has […]
The New Orleans Saints got a steal at the wide receiver position in the sixth round when they took A.T. Perry out of Wake Forest. Throwing him in the mix with Michael Thomas, Chris Olave, and Bryan Edwards gives the Saints some viable threats in the passing game.
There's another weapon that New Orleans has that doesn't get mentioned enough.
Last offseason, the Saints signed wide receiver Rashid Shaheed as an undrafted free agent out of Weber State. After not playing in the first five games, Shaheed would appear in each of the final 12 games with six starts.
Shaheed came into the league with a bang. After being activated from the practice squad to play against the Cincinnati Bengals, Shaheed took a handoff 44 yards for his first NFL touchdown on his first offensive touch. In his second game, Shaheed caught his first pass, and it was a 53-yard touchdown when the Saints played the Arizona Cardinals.
At season's end, Shaheed tallied 488 yards and two touchdowns, catching 28 of his 34 targets. That was good enough to get Shaheed some pretty high praise from Pro Football Focus.
They deemed him the most underrated player on the Saints heading into the upcoming season.
Shaheed was an undrafted rookie out of Weber State who was able to elevate himself from the practice squad and establish a real role within the Saints offense by the end of the season. Starting in Week 12, Shaheed saw at least three targets in every game to close out the season and during that stretch, he posted an 80.5 receiving grade that ranked 15th best among 100 receivers who saw at least 100 passing snaps. He ranked second among receivers over that span with an average of 2.71 yards per route run.
Shaheed has good height at 6'0" and blazing 4.3-4.4 speed, and showed versatility as a rookie with 50 snaps logged as a slot receiver (had 142 snaps as an outside receiver) per PFF. If he can take the next step in his development, the Saints' offense, with Derek Carr at quarterback, will be tough to stop through the air.
