The Kansas City Chiefs’ trade to acquire Kadarius Toney from the New York Giants didn’t materialize out of thin air at the NFL trade deadline. The interest actually began over seven months ago.
Ahead of the 2022 NFL draft, the New York Daily News reported on the Giants’ efforts to trade Toney. New GM Joe Schoen was calling around, gauging interest from teams and trying to find out what they might be able to get for their former first-round draft pick. One of the teams that they called was the Chiefs.
Shortly after Kansas City traded to acquire Toney, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported that the teams had talked about a deal for the receiver back in the spring.
Interesting note I heard on Kadarius Toney deal: Chiefs and Giants first broached subject back in the spring. Seems KC has long had its eye on a potential new target for Patrick Mahomes.
— Jeremy Fowler (@JFowlerESPN) October 28, 2022
On Wednesday, Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes confirmed that Brett Veach first approached him about potentially acquiring Toney during the offseason.
“Yeah, it was something that he even approached me about during the offseason,” Mahomes explained. “He kind of has kept me in the loop on everything. It didn’t work then, so you kind of get locked in during the offseason and kind of focus on the guys that are in the building and how we can have success with these guys. And we’ve had a lot of success.
“So, (Brett Veach) came to me, I think after the San Fran game and kind of came back and said, ‘This might happen during the bye. We’re talking with it.’ And everything like that. Luckily enough for us, it did happen and we were able to get another talented playmaker in that receiving room.”
Mahomes added that this occurred at the time when the team was bringing all the new receivers in during free agency.
“There was a ton of options that (Brett Veach) was going to try and work on,” Mahomes said. “We were able to get Juju (Smith-Schuster) and Marquez (Valdes-Scantling), which was obviously a great starting point. . . In Brett Veach fashion, he didn’t settle. He wanted to keep getting more and more talent in that room. He was able to still — even though it didn’t happen in the offseason — bring in Kadarius (Toney) to add him to the room. We already have a talented room and we want to keep adding more and more talent.”
As for Toney, he noted that the Chiefs’ courtship of him began back when he was a senior at the University of Florida heading into the 2021 NFL draft.
“Yeah, it feels good to be pretty much wanted by a team,” Toney said. “I think the history goes back probably a little further than that. Like Extensive, probably like since the beginning, probably like before I even entered the league where they really wanted me here.”
Toney appears to have been the Apple of Veach’s eye for a long time. As we’ve learned in the past with guys like Sammy Watkins, Melvin Ingram and even JuJu Smith-Schuster, if there is a player that Veach wants, he’ll go to great lengths to ensure that he gets them for the team.
“He’s always looking to add great players,” Mahomes said of Veach. “We’ve got competition in this room and we have a lot of great receivers in that room. We have a lot of great players on this team. So whenever you add more competition, it brings out the best in everybody. So I’m excited for that.”
