On Thursday, Bleacher Report wrote about the worst draft busts for every NFL team over the past five years and conducted a re-draft of the player they should have taken instead. When it came to the New York Giants, B/R gave us a brutal reminder of the draft choice that was Kadarius Toney.
With the 20th overall pick in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft, the Giants punched their ticket for Toney. The Florida product declared for the draft as a senior following the 2020 season, but the writing was already on the wall with his bust potential.
In Toney's first three college seasons, he never recorded more than 25 receptions, 260 receiving yards, or one touchdown, and as a senior, he fell short of earning a 1,000-yard campaign. There were also concerns that Toney was just a gadget—someone who needed touches and targets to be engineered for him.
And he was... in the worst way possible.
Toney ended up being an instant headache for the Giants and didn't even make it through his second season before he was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs for a fraction of the draft capital New York spent on him in the 2021 draft.
New York Giants fans are reminded that they could have had OT Christian Darrisaw in the 2021 NFL Draft
In the re-draft, Matt Holder of Bleacher Report has the Giants going with Minnesota Vikings offensive tackle Christian Darrisaw. Though Darrisaw hasn't made the Pro Bowl in his first four seasons and suffered a season-ending injury in 2024, he's proven to be a rock-solid tackle and cornerstone to the offensive line in Minnesota.
After taking Andrew Thomas with the fourth overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft, adding Darrisaw instead of Toney the following year in the first round could have given the Giants the bookend offensive tackles of the future they've been searching for.
Taking Darrisaw over Toney could have prevented another catastrophe as well. One year after taking Toney—one of the Giants' worst draft busts in recent memory—New York tried to find their right tackle of the future by taking Alabama's Evan Neal with the seventh overall pick. Unfortunately, Neal had a brutal start to his NFL career, and he didn't show signs of life until Year 3 in 2024 when he played in just nine games (making seven starts).
All of this could have been avoided had the New York Giants simply gone with Christian Darrisaw instead of Kadarius Toney with their first-round pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. Fans didn't need this brutal reminder of what could have been, but B/R gave it to us anyway. That's all in the past; now it's about looking ahead to the future.