It’s time for Giants to unleash receiver Kadarius Toney

By Ralph Vacchiano
FOX Sports NFC East Writer

Saquon Barkley was remarkable for the Giants on Sunday, showing everyone that he really might be back to his old form. He carried them, accounting for nearly half of their total offense.

And the Giants can’t continue to ask him to do that.

The truth is that Barkley needs help if the Giants are going to build on the momentum of their dramatic 21-20 win in Tennessee on Sunday. He needs a Robin to his Batman, or at least an Ant Man to his Thor. And the unfortunate reality is the Giants don’t have many players on their roster good enough to consistently help him.

But they do have one. And it’s past time for new coach Brian Daboll to let him out of the doghouse. This Sunday, when the 1-0 Giants return to the Meadowlands to face the Carolina Panthers, it’s time for the new regime to let second-year wide receiver Kadarius Toney play.

It’s easy to forget, after watching him do mostly nothing in the season opener, that Toney was the Giants’ first-round pick a year ago, and in the short time he played, he looked like one of the most electrifying players they’ve had in years. His rookie season was ruined by injuries, there were questions about his work ethic and how well he knew the playbook. To be sure, it was a very rocky year.

Things apparently weren’t a whole lot better this summer. Toney battled injuries again and never really seemed to win over the new coaching staff. That result was he played in just seven snaps in the win over the Titans, even though Daboll insisted that Toney was healthy and had no issues with the playbook at all.

But here’s the thing — and really this should be the only thing for an offense as talent-challenged as the Giants’: Toney touched the ball only twice on Sunday, and those were two of the most exciting plays in the game. Once he took off for 19 yards on an end-around. The next time he pulled up to throw on a wide receiver option, but pulled the ball down after seeing the coverage, ran all the way back to the other side of the field and somehow turned nothing into four yards.

It was reminiscent of how he often turned nothing into something when he was healthy last season — particularly in his breakout game in Dallas when he was like the Energizer Bunny tearing through the Cowboys’ defense for 10 catches and 189 yards. When he did that, everyone wondered why then-coach Joe Judge and his stuck-in-the-1970s offensive coordinator Jason Garrett had kept Toney on the sidelines for so long early in the season.

And even though it’s only been one game, the same question is fair for Daboll now. His best receiver on Sunday was Richie James (five receptions, 59 yards), who had 38 catches in his first three NFL seasons in San Francisco before missing last year with a knee injury. Veteran Sterling Shepard had the big play — a 65-yard touchdown catch — but he’s 29, coming off a torn Achilles and was nearly cut this spring. Kenny Golladay (two catches for 22 yards) continues to be a poor excuse for a No. 1 receiver. The Giants even gave 27 snaps to camp star David Sills, who has two catches in his four years in the league. And now 5-foot-8 rookie Wan’Dale Robinson, who was supposed to be a big part of this offense, is out with a knee injury.

And still Toney sits.

By the way, none of them has ever provided the jolt that Toney did last season, or that he did on his two plays on Sunday afternoon. The only other electrifying player the Giants have like that is Barkley, who carried the team with 164 rushing yards and 30 receiving.

He certainly can do it all, but he shouldn’t have to do it alone. 

And he wouldn’t have to, if Daboll would just let Toney out of jail.

“We had more than just seven plays for him [on Sunday] but they weren’t called,” Daboll said on Monday. “We’ll see what happens this week. The guys that were out there, we had confidence in. We have confidence in Kadarius. Our receiver position is a competitive situation, and it will be evaluated on a week-to-week basis.”

The idea that Toney’s plays just “weren’t called” is quite the passive excuse, considering Daboll could have insisted that offensive coordinator Mike Kafka call them, or he could’ve made sure Toney was more involved in the game plan during the week. Clearly this is about more than just a “competitive situation” and it has nothing to do with “personnel groups,” which is how Daboll tried to explain Toney’s lack of playing time after the game.

It was a deliberate choice for a reason Daboll is choosing not to make public. That’s fine, except his stubbornness is leaving what potentially might be the best weapon in the Giants’ passing game off the field.

And this Giants team just can’t afford to stubbornly waste a talent like that. He has to play. 

“We’ll see,” Daboll said when quizzed about Toney after the game. “We’ll do whatever we think we’ve got to do for that week. We’ll figure out ways to get him in the game. Maybe it’s less, maybe it’s more. Each week’s different. Who’s inactive might be different. It depends on everything leading up to it, and that’s why we make those decisions.”

That’s a word salad of coach-speak that clears nothing up. He sounds like he’s talking about his fifth receiver, not a first-round pick who might be the most talented player outside of Barkley on the team.

The Giants could use a player like Toney as they head into a three-game homestand against three beatable opponents: the Panthers, the Dak Prescott-less Cowboys and the Bears the next three weeks. With a little bit more juice added to the Giants’ offense, there’s no reason they can’t get through that stretch 2-2 or even 3-1.

Toney has that kind of juice. He’s a lightning bolt when he’s part of the action. He and Barkley could end up being quite the dynamic offensive duo.

There’s only one way for the Giants to really find out. So it’s time for Daboll to unleash him, get him off the sidelines, and give Toney a chance to show what he can do.

Ralph Vacchiano is the NFC East reporter for FOX Sports, covering the Washington Commanders, Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants. He spent the previous six years covering the Giants and the Jets for SNY TV in New York, and before that he spent 16 years covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. He can be found on Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.

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