Kadarius Toney hasn't had many opportunities to learn from fellow Giants WR Kenny Golladay
Giants wide receiver Kadarius Toney catches a pass during training camp at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center in East Rutherford, N.J., on Aug. 10. Credit: Brad Penner
In an ideal world, Kenny Golladay would be tutoring first-round pick Kadarius Toney on the finer points of route-running, on making plays on passes in the air and on reading defensive backs. That’s the kind of advice that veterans offer to rookies, particularly when they play the same position as the two high-profile acquisitions on the Giants do.
But neither wide receiver has been on the field much this summer, so opportunities to share that type of wisdom have been rare. They have been dealing with injuries and illness, with each hampered by a hamstring and Toney sidelined earlier this summer by a bout with COVID-19. It wasn’t until this past week that they were running the same drills at the same time in training camp.
So Golladay has been forced to tutor Toney in another area of the game: rehabbing from injuries.
"I’m just trying to keep him on a good track and trying to keep his mind clear," Golladay said this past week. "As a rookie, it’s kind of hard coming in with injuries. I dealt with it a little bit my rookie year and I know how frustrating it can be. You almost kind of want to rush it and get yourself back out there, so I kind of make sure his head is on straight and tell him everything will be all right and we have time on our side."
That’s something Golladay said he had to learn over the course of his career. He suffered a hamstring injury last season in Detroit and tried to practice through it. The result: It never fully healed.
This summer, after he hurt his same hamstring early in camp, he and the Giants shut him down almost completely. For about two weeks he did no running, no training. He caught passes on the side at a walking pace, but that was it.
"Hamstrings are tricky," he said. "You’ve got to be smart and be patient with them."
Did he learn that last year?
"I really haven’t practiced at all," he said of this summer’s regimen. "So yeah, I guess you could say I learned a little bit."
It was easier for Golladay because of his track record in the NFL. The Giants have a pretty clear picture of what he can bring to the offense.
"We saw a lot of him in Detroit," offensive coordinator Jason Garrett said. "That's one of the reasons we liked him and wanted to bring him here, so that's where it starts . . . Obviously, we'd love to have Kenny out there every practice, he and Daniel [Jones] working on their timing, but that hasn't been the case, so we deal with what the situation is. He’s stayed completely engaged. He understands what we're doing. But I think we have a real good feel for what his strengths are and the positions we want to put him in."
Toney is in a different category. The Giants saw him at Florida and thought highly enough of him to select him in the first round, but they haven’t been able to integrate him into their schemes, so they can’t say for sure what he can do at this level.
"One of the things that we've always talked about is you never want to put a ceiling on a player," Garrett said. "You never want to say ‘he's only this’ or ‘this guy can only do that’ or ‘he only can play here.’ You always want to stretch their limits. You want to see them as they can be, if you will, so you want to put them in those situations and see if they can handle it."
That process is only beginning now with Toney. It may start small.
Special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey was asked about his options at kickoff returner and said he has plenty, but mentioned only one by name. "We’ll see where Kadarius fits in," he said. "Who knows?"
As for the offense, the expectation is that Toney will be brought along slowly at first.
"With rookies, you're not going to see anyone really go out there and shoulder the burden for the team," Joe Judge said. "You don't really want to do that with rookies. You want to go ahead and build them up with their volume and the expectations early on and let them grow within their roles. I can tell you right now from coaching receivers in this league, you're going to see rookies play a lot better at the back end of the year anyway than the first end. They just need time to really work that and get it over and over."
That doesn’t mean Toney’s plays won’t be spectacular. They might be. His opportunities, though, likely will be measured at first.
While it has been frustrating for the Giants to not have the two players available for most of the summer, the payoff should be close to arriving. Both looked to be moving well in the workouts in which they participated and both seem as if they could be available for the opener on Sept. 12.
Golladay has the NFL experience to understand that trajectory. It was something Toney had to learn this summer, his first exposure to the league.
"Being a rookie is just tough, period," Golladay said. "You finally reach the goal, now you’ve got to learn a whole new playbook. You’re in a whole different city. And then on top of that, an injury? You have a lot of people back home counting on you. It can mess with your mental [state] a little bit. Like I said, with me going through that and experiencing that, I just tried to make sure that he was all right."
The trainers and medical staff took care of the physical part of that for Toney.
Golladay was there for the rest.
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.
