The hostility between New York Giants fans and Kansas City Chiefs WR Kadarius Toney has reached a head — and it’s time for all parties to move on.
Toney, of course, came to Kansas City in a midseason trade during the 2022 NFL season after a lackluster start to his career in New York. The former first-round draft pick out of Florida appeared in just 12 games with five starts over the course of two seasons with the Giants, recording 41 receptions for 420 yards and no scores in that span.
He dealt with a rash of injuries, criticism and more during his time in New York and evidently harbors some ill will toward the team and the fans given how things turned out. That’s even with his situation resulting in Super Bowl LVII win with the Chiefs in 2022. He even made an outsized impact in that game scoring a touchdown and recording the longest punt return in Super Bowl history to set up a second score.
Recent frustrations stem from the incessant and sometimes repugnant goading from some Giants fans, which Toney has been subject to at an increasing rate since the trade. What started as some trolling between fans and a player has clearly now spiraled out of control.
The most recent wave seems to have been triggered by a viral video for Icebox, a jewelry store with locations in Atlanta, Miami and New York. Toney flipping off “everybody in New York” with the Chiefs’ Super Bowl LIV ring superimposed over his middle finger. The clip that was shared to social media conveniently neglects to show the comments directly following:
“Aye, look, I love trolling,” Toney said. “They be trying to troll me, I got something for them.”
The 24-year-old wideout has since gone on to get into profanity-filled spats with content creators and fans alike — to which he now claims to have been hacked. That could be more trolling from Toney or simply NFL damage control in action.
Toney shoulders plenty of blame in this situation for giving the trolls what they want, which is a reaction. He says he likes trolling and the banter, which is apparent, but it’s only prolonging a split that should have been a clean sever.
Let’s not forget, the Giants are better off for this trade too. The third-round pick that New York received in the trade for Toney was flipped to the Las Vegas Raiders in return for Darren Waller. They got rid of a player who wasn’t producing and got their own star tight end for offensive coordinator Mike Kafka to build an offense around. They’ll be singing a different tune when they realize that Waller can be their very own Travis Kelce.
That’s not even considering the sixth-round pick New York also acquired in the trade and used on DB Tre Hawkins III in the 2023 NFL draft.
We all know what Toney should do here — that’s to let all of the trolling stand, perform on the football field with his teammates and let Giants fans eat crow. That’s certainly what the team will tell him to do after recent happenings. But it’s easy for me and everyone else to say that. We don’t all have idiots screaming at us on a daily basis, spewing unwarranted hatred and insults in an attempt to get a reaction.
