Giants WR Kadarius Toney says he won't let trash talk by Rams' Jalen Ramsey get to him

Kadarius Toney will have two challenges when potentially facing Rams cornerback Jalen Ramsey on Sunday.

The first is going against an All-Pro player. The second is going against an All-World yapper.

Ramsey has a reputation for trash talking and getting under the skin of opponents, and after Toney was ejected from last week’s game against the Cowboys for throwing a punch, he’s sure to bring his "A" material for this matchup to try to egg Toney into another altercation.

The Giants say Toney is prepared for that.

"He’s probably got a target on him just because of what happened last week," fellow wide receiver Sterling Shepard said. "He knows that and, I mean, everybody has talked to him. He’ll be fine."

Toney said as much earlier in the week when he apologized for his actions against the Cowboys and was asked how he can atone for them.

"All I’ve got to do is really show by my actions," he said. "We’ve got a few opponents coming up that are ‘rowdy’ I guess you could say, so just how I react. It’s not about what they do, but how I react, and I know how to react from now on."

While Toney is not expected to face any league suspension for the punch he threw in Dallas, coach Joe Judge has not said if he will be disciplined in some fashion by the team on Sunday. Last year players who ran afoul of Judge’s rules often sat out a quarter or even an entire game in the case of egregious transgressions.

From all he has said since the incident, Toney appears to have learned a lesson from the infraction.

That doesn’t mean that Toney or any of the other Giants receivers will allow Ramsey to do or say whatever he wants.

"Jalen likes to talk, and everybody knows that around the league," Shepard said. "We’re not going to shy away from anything. We’re going to play our game and we’re going to do what we do, no matter who’s out there. That’s that."

NOTES & QUOTES: Saquon Barkley did not practice on Wednesday because of the ankle sprain he suffered on Sunday and he likely will miss the game against the Rams. "You can just tell that it’s tough on a guy when he’s worked so hard to get back [from a torn ACL] and put himself into a certain position," Judge said of the running back. "He was really helping the team. Then you have a setback like this, it’s obviously frustrating" … Despite the optimism expressed earlier in the week that LT Andrew Thomas will play on Sunday, he was a non-participant in Wednesday’s practice because of the foot injury that kept him out of the game against Dallas. Also not practicing were WR Kenny Golladay (knee) and G Matt Skura (knee) … Shepard (hamstring), WR Darius Slayton (hamstring) and S Jabrill Peppers (hamstring) were all listed as limited but showed no indication that they will be sidelined for Sunday. Shepard said he was ready to play against Dallas, "but I think it was a little late in the week and we decided to just sit it down for that last week. But I’m back this week. Happy about that."

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.