Kadarius Toney was traded by the New York Giants to the Kansas City Chiefs in a surprising blockbuster deal. The Chiefs traded their compensatory third-round pick and a sixth-round pick to the Giants for Toney. The 2021 first-round pick appeared in just 12 of 24 games for the Giants and finished with 41 receptions, 420 yards and zero TDs over that sample size.
Toney appeared to break out with 10 receptions for 189 yards (and seven yards on one rushing attempt) in his fourth game as a rookie in 2021 after racking up 78 yards on six receptions in the game before that. It was then that he jumped onto the Fantasy Football radar as a potential league-wining pick. That was in Week 4, and Toney would go on to appear in just five more games as a rookie and he never topped 40 yards receiving -- or found the end zone -- in any of them. Toney only appeared in one game with the Giants in his second season before injuring his hamstring.
During this current season, while rehabbing his one hamstring injury, Toney reportedly tweaked his other hamstring -- at least according to Giants head coach Brian Daboll. Toney Tweeted then deleted something that would suggest he's no longer dealing with an injury. CBSSports NFL writer Jordan Dajani has more on Toney's deleted Tweets.
How it impacts the Chiefs
If Toney is in fact close to returning to action from a health standpoint, he could potentially be an immediate factor in the Chiefs offense given his skill set. According to CBS Sports' Douglas Clawson, the Chiefs can use Toney in motion as a way to get him involved in the offense early on.
"Their motion player accounts for 21 percent of the Chiefs' motion touches this year, the fifth-highest rate in the NFL," writes Clawson. "The Chiefs have the most touches, yards and touchdowns when the motion player gets a touch this year ... It's especially effective in the red zone area. When a Chiefs player in motion gets a touch in the red zone they score on 9-of-15 plays. When Kansas City doesn't give the motion player a touch in the red area they score on 9-of-32 plays.
The Chiefs' motion player has scored 10 touchdowns so far this season -- the next closest team's motion player has scored three. The Chiefs are also a more effective offense overall when using motion (they have the second-highest motion rate in the NFL at 67%). They've scored 22 total touchdowns this season -- motion player or someone else -- when using motion. The next highest-scoring team in these situation is the Dolphins with 13 touchdowns.
According to Clawson, Toney ranked third in the FBS in scrimmage yards (220) when he was the player in motion in his final college season at Florida in 2020. His numbers: 25 touches, 220 yards, 3 TDs.
Check out Clawson's entire research notes linked above for a greater look at how the Chiefs use presnap motion to create free yardage, how effective they are in doing so, and more.
From a depth chart standpoint, Toney joins a Chiefs wide receiver corps that is crowded but has played inconsistent this season. Free agent signing JuJu Smith-Schuster has finally come on over his last two games after further developing his rapport with Patrick Mahomes, but behind him the Chiefs have struggled to find consistency from any other receiver on this roster. Free agent signing Marquez Valdes-Scantling has produced at times, as has Mecole Hardman, but neither player has created consistent offense for the Chiefs. Rookie second-round pick Skyy Moore has been limited to special teams for the most part, struggling to find his niche in the offense.
Toney's ability to work in space and after the catch, and to be effective with presnap motion, should get him on the field sooner than anticipated if he is truly fully healthy. The Chiefs could find value in using him at first as a decoy -- eye candy in the backfield to get the defense's eyes moving in the wrong direction -- and that would lead to him getting on the field. Toney is also a former quarterback and the Giants designed a trick play for him earlier this season where he was designed to throw the football before he pulled it down and decided to run with it. I wouldn't put it past Reid to dial up something similar at some point.
One thing that might be worth noting is that earlier in the season, both Giants coaches and players (Sterling Shepard) mentioned how wide receivers on the team were still running the wrong routes. They said that in the postgame after the Giants were called for an offensive pass interference play when Toney and David Sills ran their routes at the same depth down the field creating a pick on the defender. Toney never played a full complement of snaps in the Brian Daboll offense even when he was healthy. On film, he ran almost exclusively drag routes during his limited 2022 season sample size. There was speculation around the team that Toney was not able to get on the field.
How it impacts the Giants
This trade should have little impact on the Giants in Fantasy Football for the 2022 season. There was always the hope among fans that Toney could return to the field and provide the offense a spark -- the Giants offense is similar to the Chiefs from a schematic standpoint and therefore Toney was a great fit -- but that wasn't guaranteed. They'll move forward with rookie Wan'Dale Robinson continuing to play a bigger role (his snaps, target share and route participation are trending up in his two games back), along with Darius Slayton and Marcus Johnson playing the majority of snaps at wide receiver. Slayton and Robinson are the only two receivers wroth rostering and Robinson has both the highest ceiling and floor. That could change when Kenny Golladay returns from injury, but for now this remains a low-ceiling pass offense.
