Giants rookie Kadarius Toney's preseason derailed by injury, illness

Kadarius Toney has had an awfully eventful preseason for someone who hasn’t been able to practice all that much.

The Giants rookie wide receiver, drafted 20th overall, introduced himself by practicing with one cleat during rookie minicamp (apparently, they didn’t fit correctly), didn’t make it to rookie OTAs because he was negotiating his contract, came down with COVID-19 and is now missing time with an undisclosed injury. But despite all the trials and travails that could have potentially made the Giants second-guess their first-round pick, general manager Dave Gettleman, along with Joe Judge and his coaches, are confident all this is just a hiccup and not a sign of more issues to come.

"Look, there’s nothing too much to read into this," Judge said on Wednesday. "This guy is working hard, he’s doing what we’re asking him to do. Obviously, he had to come off the COVID-19 list, that made his timeline a little bit different than everybody else. No different than anybody else, there are bumps and bruises, things you have to deal with."

Nothing, though, is guaranteed, and special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey has said that Toney, like everyone else, will have to prove himself.

"It's kind of hard to do" if he’s not practicing, McGaughey said. "That's just the reality of it. He'll get out there eventually and Kadarius is a smart kid, works his tail off and he's just got to get through the situation right now. Once he gets through his situation, he'll be fine. He's just got to keep working. Whenever he shows up and he's ready to go, he'll be ready to go."

Judge said there is no timeline on Toney's return from injury, but that the Giants are going to continue to check with trainers and allow him to do some limited things as they try to gauge where he’s at in the recovery process. The fact that he recovered from COVID adds another wrinkle to his return, Judge added.

"That’s something that’s set him back," Judge said. "He definitely was behind in his conditioning coming off. You’ve got to remember when he came up here and he had the quarantine period where he had to stay inactive by himself and then obviously that sets you back for a good bit. That’s something we’ve seen with all of our players coming off of COVID-19. We’ve had different guys in different stages. Some guys have tried to work out while they’ve been away and found that tough, where they can’t. Some guys have been able to go ahead, and they’ve been asymptomatic, and they’ve come back with an easier transition coming back."

Offensive coordinator Jason Garrett said that they’re trying to find ways to keep Toney in the fold, meeting with him and doing walk-throughs. Gettleman, meanwhile, said he’s been impressed with his work ethic.

"He'll get there, he's working his fanny off, getting healthy," Gettleman said. "He's had that stop-and-start and it doesn't make us any less than enthused about him. The kid’s got tremendous talent . . . He's been terrific in the classroom. He's engaged and the kid wants to be out there. He’s a competitor. I treat contracts like injuries: Contracts get done when they’re supposed to get done, guys get healthy when they're supposed to get healthy, and he’ll be out there and we trust our medical staff."

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.