Method for optimizing the delay spread performance of a radio receiver (200) includes evaluating (306) a delay spread environment to determine if a desired RF signal is being received under conditions of low delay spread or high delay spread. If a low delay spread condition, the baseband digital data signal is filtered using a narrow filter (310). Otherwise, the signal is filtered using a wide bandwidth filter (312) having a bandwidth wider than the narrow filter. The center frequency of the wide bandwidth filter is selectively shifted (316, 320) in accordance with a predetermined frequency offset if a second received power level of an interfering signal in an adjacent channel exceeds the first received power level by a predetermined threshold amount. This frequency shift of the filter allows for improved delay spread performance while minimizing any performance degradation when an interfering signal is present on an adjacent channel.