ORCHARD PARK – Lost in the shuffle of the Buffalo Bills parading several of their free agent acquisitions through the media interview room at One Bills Drive Thursday, general manager continued to grind, signing wide receiver Laviska Shenault Jr. to a low-rent one-year deal.
Given where Shenault is five years into his underwhelming career, it would seem his chances of making the Bills’ 53-man roster hinges on one thing: Can he become the team’s full-time kickoff returner, a duty he has added to his repertoire since 2022, though even that seems like a longshot.
What to know about wide receiver Laviska Shenault Jr.
Shenault was a second-round pick by the Jaguars in the 2020 NFL Draft and at that time his combination of size (6-foot-1, 220 pounds) and decent speed (4.58 seconds in the 40) foretold potential NFL stardom, which is what he expected.
“I see myself being a star, honestly,” he said at the 2020 scouting combine in Indianapolis. “I think I would be able to open up more space and just do things that the other receivers don’t do just because of my size and my ability.”
His first two seasons weren’t great, but Shenault was at least productive as he caught 121 passes for 1,219 yards and five TDs. Still, the Jaguars weren’t enamored and they traded him to the Panthers at the end of 2022 training camp with a miniscule return of two low-round draft picks, and Shenault’s career has circled the drain ever since.
In the last three seasons he has played for the Panthers, Seahawks and Chargers and caught just 47 passes for 368 yards and one TD, though he did start to earn his keep in 2024 for Seattle when he had 16 returns for a 28.7-yard average including a 97-yard TD.
Buffalo Bills were tied to Laviska Shenault Jr. before 2020 draft
For Bills fans, this move feels similar to the swing Beane took last year on Chase Claypool, another big-bodied receiver who began his career well and then fell off the map. As you’ll recall, Claypool got hurt during OTAs, hardly did anything at training camp before getting hurt again, and he hasn’t been heard from since, his NFL career likely over.
Interestingly, Shenault was a player who was linked to the Bills in the 2020 draft at a time when they were trying to build an offense around emerging quarterback Josh Allen. All they had at receiver was Cole Beasley, John Brown and Isaiah McKenzie, but then Beane acquired Stefon Diggs in a March trade from the Vikings, and in that draft – with Shenault long gone to Jacksonville – they picked Gabriel Davis in the fourth round.
Laviska Shenault Jr. exceled in college after family tragedy
Shenault’s background was a big storyline in the lead up to the draft because 11 years earlier, in July of 2009, he watched his father, Laviska Shenault Sr., get hit by a car on the side of a highway just outside Dallas and die at the scene.
That night, Shenault’s mother, Annie, was driving the family home from a pool party and along the way her husband convinced her to pull over and let him drive the rest of the way. The 39-year-old got out of the car, came around to the drivers’ side, and somehow slipped and stumbled into oncoming traffic on a highway named Loop 12 at a spot around 15 miles east of the home of the Cowboys, AT&T Stadium.
One car swerved and only clipped him, and he would have survived that blow. However, a Ford F-150 pickup could not avoid him and plowed head on into Laviska Sr., catapulting him through the air and killing him instantly as Annie and her five children watched in horror.
Shenault overcame that tragedy, wound up attending Colorado and his last two seasons he forced himself onto the NFL radar by catching 142 passes for 1,775 yards and 10 TDs and rushing 40 times for 276 yards and seven TDs.
At the 2020 combine, Beane was asked about Shenault and he said, “He’s a good player. I think he had a little bit of a nagging injury (in 2019) but if you go back and watch his film before, he’s been a productive player at Colorado and put his name up there as one of the better receivers. He’s a bigger young man that has done some things down the field, but also done some of the stuff behind the line of scrimmage. His tape was fun to watch.”