Kadarius Toney plays from NY Giants camp that are really opening eyes

There’s no denying that 2021 was a turbulent season for Kadarius Toney and the NY Giants. After being drafted 20th overall, Toney dealt with a preposterous amount of injuries. His strange season of injuries began when Toney had a bizarre mishap with one of his shoes in rookie minicamp. Toney suffered injuries to his hamstring, ankle, quad, abdomen and shoulder. When he was on the field, Toney was creating highlight reel plays with his incredible juke moves.

At camp, Toney has been on the field every day, showing off his immense athleticism to the new Giants coaching staff. The Giants have made numerous SportsCenter Top 10 worthy plays during training camp, and Toney has been at the forefront of most of them. Here are the four best Toney plays from NY Giants camp that fans have loved thus far.

4. Toney with an unreal contested catch

During both Toney’s rookie season with the Giants and his college career at Florida, he was given the ball with open space to operate, not thrown the ball in contested catch situations. In this play, Toney gives Rodarius Williams a little jab step and than sets up in the corner of the end zone, extends his arms as high as possible and catches the ball while getting both his feet down.

While Toney is often thought of as a gadget receiver, he is really an elite receiver in all facets of the game: speed, making guys miss, and contested catch situations. If he can continually pull down these types of crazy contested catches, he will become a star wideout.

3. Toney creating space with ease

Toney made this play look way too easy. Toney gives the Giants best cornerback Adoree’ Jackson a quick jab step move at the line of scrimmage nearly making him fall, and than blows right past him. Daniel Jones delivers a ball that is a little late, and Toney quickly slows down and snags in the pass while Jackson is running full speed towards him.

The most impressive part of this play is the way Toney smoothly put on the brakes, slowed down, and caught the toss from Jones. Jackson is an above average cornerback in football, so if this is any indication, Toney could be making many NFL defensive backs look silly this season.

2. Toney with a SportsCenter Top 10 kind of catch

This play is just absurd to comprehend. With Aaron Robinson draped all over him, Toney leaps up and snags the perfectly thrown ball from Jones, Odell Beckham Jr. style with his left hand, and pulls the ball into his body while falling to the ground.

Oh, and he did all of that while still managing to keep both of his feet in bounds. This play just demonstrates the absurd athleticism Toney has. His teammates seemingly loved the play, running right into the end zone to celebrate. Coach Brian Daboll thought the play was so tremendous that he joined the end zone celebration, running right into the video to give Toney a congratulatory slap on the back.

1. Toney showing his versatility

While this is not a highlight reel play like the first three, seeing Toney line up in the backfield is something that will make Giants fans very happy. Toney has olympic track speed, so it is not surprising to see him being used out of the backfield.

It is a very good idea for Mike Kafka to take some pressure off of Jones, and finding easy ways to get Toney the football is the perfect way to do that. During both Kafka’s time in Kansas City with Tyreek Hill and Brian Daboll’s time in Buffalo with Isaiah McKenzie, both of whom have similar skillsets to Toney, the new Giants offensive braintrusts found creative ways to quickly get each of those players the ball through handoffs and pop passes.

With his game-breaking speed and ability to make defenders miss, giving Toney the ball as quickly as possible like Hill received it numerous times during his career in Kansas City could turn Toney into one of the top weapons in the NFL. We’ll see how he performs during the regular season, but Toney has looked fantastic thus far.