The future is bright for Kansas City Chiefs WR Kadarius Toney.
The second-year wideout had to get acclimated on the fly in Kansas City after his trade for the New York Giants in October, but it didn’t take long for him to make an impact. His natural athletic ability was something that flashed right away that the Chiefs were able to capitalize on to the tune of over 200 total yards and three touchdowns in 7 regular season games.
“With the athletic ability that is obvious to everybody, the sky’s the limit for him as a receiver,” Chiefs WR coach Joe Bleymaier told a friend of the site, Fox Sports’ Henry McKenna, during Super Bowl media week. “When you get him [in a trade] in-season, our main focus was just getting him comfortable and getting him to be able to operate. He’s so smart and has such a good memory that he was able to pick everything up quick. So he got comfortable with the offense very quickly. And then it was just about managing the load and where he fit in with all the other pieces midseason.”
Getting Toney up to speed wasn’t the easiest process as he battled a hamstring injury that plagued him even in New York. He was on the field for more than 44% of the offensive snaps in a single game this season. That said, Kansas City’s wide receiver coach still has plenty of optimism for the future.
“It’ll be all about how can we take what we built off this year and just expand his role however it goes — whether it’s downfield stuff, whether it’s more in the backfield,” Bleymaier said. “And with his intelligence, he can do it all. It’s just now building off what we did and then kind of fitting in complementary parts with every other part of the offense. But it’s definitely exciting. And there is no limit with the glimpse that we’ve had from midseason till now.”
Continuing to build on 2022 with a no-ceilings approach regarding his talent should allow the Chiefs to unlock a Kadarius Toney that we’ve yet to see at the NFL level.
