Giants trade Kadarius Toney to Chiefs for draft picks
Perhaps Kadarius Toney will grow into the superstar wide receiver he occasionally looked like in his rookie season.
But it won’t be for the Giants.
The Giants gave up on their 2021 first-round pick on Thursday, when they dealt the injury-plagued wideout to the Chiefs pending a physical. The Giants will receive third- and sixth-round draft picks, the former a compensatory pick for the Bears’ hiring of former Chiefs exec Ryan Poles as GM.
Toney played in just 12 of 24 games with the Giants and just two this season. He hurt his right hamstring in training camp and missed all three preseason games before playing sparingly in Weeks 1 and 2. He aggravated the injury and said he hurt his left hamstring, too, early this month as he neared a return. He had not dressed for a game since Week 2 and finishes his Giants campaign with two catches for zero yards.
“We’re moving on. I wish Kadarius well,” head coach Brian Daboll said before practice, declining to reveal much about the thinking behind the trade. “We just made a decision that we thought was best for the team.”
It might be best for Toney, too, who was the final first-round pick of the Dave Gettleman regime and had been surrounded by trade rumors since Daboll and GM Joe Schoen took over.
“CHIEFS KINGDOM BABYY,” Toney, whose new team has a bye this week, wrote on Twitter alongside a few hearts. “Thank You God.”
In a since-deleted tweet, Toney — whose career as aspiring rapper Yung Joka was viewed by some as a distraction — insinuated he was not (or no longer) injured, saying in part, “If I Was Actually Hurt Still Lol…..Irrelevant people don’t get updates.”
The Giants did not comment on the message. Daniel Jones praised the Giants’ doctors, and Kenny Golladay, who himself has been sidelined with a knee injury, said Toney has been closer to taking the field than Golladay.
“If he said he was healthy, he was healthy,” Golladay said. “I can’t really judge how his body is.”
Toney’s murky status no longer matters for the Giants, whose receiving corps already had been absent Sterling Shepard (for the season with a torn ACL) and Golladay (for now with a knee injury) and has relied heavily on the likes of former seventh-round pick Richie James and former practice-squadder David Sills. Rookie second-round pick Wan’Dale Robinon, injured for the first month of the season, is coming off his best game, catching six of eight targets for 50 yards in Sunday’s win over the Jaguars.
Ahead of a trip to Seattle, the 6-1 Giants unloaded their most promising, if sidelined, receiver. Asked if they will try to bring in another wideout, Daboll said: “We’ll see, guys. It just happened a few minutes ago.”
Through seven games, not one Giants receiver has racked up 200 yards through the air. James is leading the way with 191 yards, followed by Saquon Barkley’s 180. With few weapons, the Giants have transitioned into a run-focused offense. If they have intentions of replacing Toney externally, the trade deadline is Tuesday.
And if there was either anger or cheers in the locker room following the swap, they did not appear publicly. Several Giants said they would reach out to Toney.
“Anytime there’s a trade you’re going to be shocked,” said Barkley, who said the team will have the same mindset without Toney as it did with him. “But KT’s a talented player. I wish him nothing but the best in KC.”
Toney showed flashes of promise — two flashes to be exact — and ended his Giants tenure without a receiving touchdown.
Last year, Toney broke out in New Orleans, where he caught six passes for 78 yards — and attempted a pass on a trick play — in a Week 4 win. The next week, he garnered comparisons to Odell Beckham Jr. during a 10-catch, 189-yard beauty of a performance that was tainted by a fourth-quarter ejection for throwing a punch at Cowboys safety Damontae Kazee.
Toney appeared in only seven more games with the Giants and did not exceed 40 yards receiving in any.
“Obviously would have loved to have more success on the field, but wish him the best going forward,” said Jones, who lost one more outside weapon but publicly kept his focus. “We don’t make any of those decisions. That’s stuff that happens upstairs. It’s our job to play.”
