Kansas City Chiefs Use Kadarius Toney Early But Not Often During Debut

The Kansas City Chiefs tried out their shiny new toy, wide receiver Kadarius Toney, early.

Toney, who the Chiefs acquired on Oct. 27, started Sunday’s game next to Juju Smith-Schuster on the right side in a two-wide receiver alignment and caught a pass on the very first play of the Chiefs’ 20-17 overtime victory.

He made the two-yard catch before being tackled by Tennessee Titans defensive backs Joshua Kalu and Roger McCreary.

The Chiefs used him on option routes, and he played nine offensive snaps.

Usually, that would be about one-seventh of the offensive plays, but because the Chiefs ran an absurd number (91, which is tied for the third most in franchise history), Toney was in on only 9% of the snaps.

“He did a good job,” Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said. “Obviously, we couldn’t throw too much at him, but whenever he was in the game, he was playing hard.”

His best play was on the third-to-last play of the second quarter. Toney lined up on the right side in a four-wide receiver, empty-back set, caught the pass, broke linebacker David Long Jr’s tackle and gained 10 yards for the first down, which set up a touchdown four plays later.

“His ability speaks for itself,” Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce said. “He’s very quick, can put his foot in the ground with the best of them. And he’s special with the ball in his hands.”

Toney caught one more pass to begin overtime, though the play didn’t end up counting because of an illegal man down field, for four yards.

On that play he lined up on the left side inside of Smith-Schuster in a two-wide receiver set like on the game’s very first play (except they were on the left side this time).

The second-year player ended his first Chiefs game with two catches for 12 yards.

Toney did not play on special teams, even though he returned seven kickoffs for 155 yards and 11 punt returns for 139 yards during his senior year at Florida.

“We know he can do it,” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid said.

The Chiefs, though, used Mecole Hardman and Justin Watson, who are both free agents at season’s end and could be potentially replaced by Toney, as the punt returners, following rookie Skyy Moore’s early-season struggles.

It was not a surprise Toney received action — and played in just his third game of the season (and weirdly second against the Titans) — after the Chiefs traded a conditional third-round pick and sixth-round pick to the New York Giants for him.

All week the Chiefs coaches had been praising his intelligence. Plus, he had a slight edge of playing for Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka, who used to be the Chiefs’ quarterbacks coach, making his new playbook a bit more familiar.

“I see a few correlations, but there are a lot of differences too,” Toney said. “I’m grasping it gradually.”

The Chiefs will continue to work in the former first-round pick this season, but the trade was as much a move for the future.

Toney is signed through 2024, and his salary and cap hit for the next three years are $784,000 in 2022, $1.907 million in 2023 and $2.531 million in 2024.

And in addition to Hardman and Watson, Smith-Schuster is a free agent at season’s end and likely will command a raise from his $3.76 million deal, following a season that has him on pace for 94 catches and 1,237 receiving yards.

Smith-Schuster started alongside Toney in the newest Chiefs’ very first game.

“As he gets more and more accustomed with the offense,” Mahomes said, “we’ll keep adding him here and there and make our offense even better.”