Another Round 1 Wide Receiver bites the dust. Don’t say we did not warn you. Round 1 Wide Receiver does not stick around your franchise.
Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll moved on. They jettisoned the jet WR. Toney was oft injured. In ~1.5 seasons, 24 games, Toney started 4 times, collected 420 yards but only suited up for 12 games. In 2022, Toney surfaced for 2 games, saw extremely limited snaps, got hurt again, and got traded.
Frustration.
Kadarius Toney’s start in blue began with the wrong-sized cleat in his first rookie OTA. There were questions about how much of the playbook he knew in both 2021 and 2022. He had hamstring injuries in both 2021 and 2022. There were questions about effort.
Listen to the second tweet below, the excerpt from Breaking Big Blue podcast…
@JordanRaanan on Kadarius Toney in camp(8/25): pic.twitter.com/21EvFjuX7T
— NYGfaninCLT (@clt_ny) September 14, 2022
More from Raanan today: “Have spoken w/former + current coaches about him over past few months. Talent undeniable. Previous coaching staff thought he was fine when in building. Problem was- could they trust him to put in work when not under their supervision.”
In trading lingo, the Giants took their losses. They gave up and moved on. They will get a Round 3 compensatory pick from KC along with (most likely) a Round 6 pick. Dave Gettleman’s legacy of screwing up on DeAndre Baker and Kadarius Toney, two Round 1 picks taken despite red flags, is now sealed. It is pretty stunning to watch a Round 1 asset fizzle in literally a year and a half.
Some argue that the Giants needed to keep Toney because they desperately needed WR and needed to patiently wait for his return. Apparently, Schoen’s and Daboll’s patience ran out. They were on the front lines. The Toney that Daboll cursed at in practice, the player who did not know the playbook, who was oft injured, and who could not be trusted, was not worth a future in NY.
So what of Toney’s future in KC? Or thereafter? It does not matter. Do not attempt to match his results on any team other than NY with his results had he remained with the Giants. We have told the story of Cris Carter, how his time in Philadelphia was never going to work out for him. That Carter went to the HOF via Minnesota does not mean he could have stayed in Philadelphia and achieved the same result. That ship sailed. And so too does that ship sail for Toney in blue. Do not look back. Move forward. Schoen and Daboll have moved forward. Onward. To Seattle.