Giants' Kenny Golladay, Kadarius Toney are not meeting expectations

They filled the offseason with optimism. They have filled the preseason with trepidation, frustration and anxiety. What they fill the regular season with, especially in the early stages, likely will not be close to what was expected.

The two big offensive acquisitions for the Giants heading into the 2021 campaign, free-agent wide receiver Kenny Golladay and first-round pick Kadarius Toney, were supposed to be difference-makers. Instead, both already have missed the first two preseason games and almost certainly will miss the third and final one Sunday.

Though both could be ready to play in the Sept. 12 opener against Denver, it’s becoming more and more unlikely that they will be fully integrated in the timing and schemes of the offense in Week 1.

Golladay has been sidelined with a hamstring injury since Aug. 3, relegated to catching passes from a stationary or walking position in the most recent practices. Toney began training camp with a bout of COVID-19 and has been dealing with another unspecified injury for a little more than a week that has kept him off the practice and game fields.

Joe Judge said he can’t evaluate what Toney will bring the Giants "until we see him physically when he is fully back 100% and then see him execute within the game plan for that week and how he operates. That’s the best view I can get to see what we can expect from him."

It isn’t a view he will be getting soon. Judge said Toney likely will be doing more individual drills this week in joint practices against the Patriots, and Golladay could be in the same phase of his return.

"I don’t think you can expect to see him in 11-on-11s this week," Judge said of Golladay, adding that the same goes for Toney.

Throw in receiver John Ross’ hamstring injury, tight end Kyle Rudolph still on PUP as he recovers from offseason foot surgery and the yet-to-be-cleared Saquon Barkley, and the supposedly revamped and rehabbed Giants offense the front office spent millions assembling in the spring has frittered away much of this month on the sideline.

The players who have been participating, and making the plays that raise the most eyebrows, are the holdovers: Sterling Shepard, Evan Engram and Darius Slayton.

The upgrades to the 2020 team have only been imagined thus far and, with less than three weeks until the opener, yet to be seen.

Judge said he is pleased with the improvements Golladay and Toney are making. Ross, Rudolph and Barkley also are inching closer to the field.

But even if all of those pieces are ready to face the Broncos, they’ll still need time to find their strides in the offense. Their timing with Daniel Jones or with the offensive line that was supposed to be built during the past month will have to be crammed into midweek practices during the regular season. Their comfort with executing what the playbook asks of them might not be achieved until September.

Judge said participation in these antipasto elements of the season-long meal don’t necessarily lead to success.

"There are a lot of guys who went through spring, training camp, played in multiple preseason games, but if they don’t execute on Sunday in the regular season, it’s not going to matter," he said.

But it can be almost impossible to dive into the regular season without an acclimation period.

The Giants may very well go into the 2021 season relying at first on many of the same players whose disappointing 2020 production left them next-to-last in scoring (17.5 points per game) and spurred the arrival of all of the new pieces.

Golladay and Toney were brought in to fix that. They may be healthy enough to play by Sept. 12, but the closer the Giants get to that date without integrating them into what they want to do with the ball, the deeper into the season they’ll have to wait before their impacts can truly be felt.

And before the Giants can know what they got.

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.