January 10, 2022 was a bleak day for Cowboys, Eagles and Commanders fans around the world, according to the New York Giants Resignation of General Manager Dave Gettleman. In his four years as GM, Gettleman made so many unimaginably bad maneuvers that he became more valuable to the Cowboys than Dak Prescott, more important to the Commanders’ success than Chase Young, and better for the sanity of an Eagles fan than Jason Kelce. Whether it was drafting Daniel Jones sixth overall in 2019, Andrew Thomas fourth overall in 2020, signing Adoree’ Jackson for more money than Logan Ryan, or sacking Romeo Okwara in 2018 in exchange for scrapped veteran Connor Barwin, Gettleman was always sure to put a smile on his rivals’ faces. Like death and taxes, his mistakes were inevitable.
However, Giants fans jumped for joy when the news broke. The man who vowed to lead the franchise to victory again only to found one of the saddest franchises in the league was finally gone. Three months later, new GM JoeSchoen is trying to undermine Gettleman’s final design.
according to a report by Pat Leonard the New York Daily News On Friday, the Giants and Schoen plan to trade their 2021 first-round draft pick after just one season with the team. Kadarius Toney, 23, had a disappointing rookie season with just 39 passes for 420 yards and no touchdowns in 10 games played, but he was still second on the team by pacing for just 101 yards while catching less than that in four games The team’s leading played receiver, Kenny Golladay.
Of course, the production is not the reason for this decision. According to Leonard, Toney’s decision to exit the Giants’ voluntary offseason programs was the straw that broke the back of the proverbial camel. Per Leonard: “During his tumultuous rookie season a year ago, there was some internal impetus to save Toney. His commitment was questioned behind the scenes during his rookie year due to a lack of playbook studies, poor meeting behavior and frequent injuries.”
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While the injuries are obviously not Toney’s fault, they have become a concern for the former Florida Gator. He was forced to miss most of Giants training camp in his rookie year with a hamstring injury and was constantly hampered by ankle, quad and oblique injuries (as well as COVID) throughout the season. His injuries are so widespread that train sharks gives Toney a 54 percent chance of suffering at least one injury in 2022 and a 4.5 percent chance of being injured in a game next season.
To put that in perspective, even someone who’s been as injury-prone as Christian McCaffrey in recent years has a 78 percent chance. That’s after two seasons in which he played a total of 10 games, as many as Toney. Nevertheless, Toney has already reached a 54 percent mark after his rookie season.
There are also the personality issues that Leonard mentioned. The Giants aren’t all that far from their Odell Beckham Jr. days, and while neither Schoen nor new head coach Brian Daboll were involved with that team, they probably saw the impact the OBJ saga was having on the Giants back then. Toney’s refusal to study playbooks and not disrupting meetings coupled with the fact that he has expressed frustration at his lack of use early last season despite missing most of training camp AND The fact that he was kicked out of a game for throwing a punch at Cowboys safety Demontae Kazee is a concern, and Schoen is trying to dodge it. It just goes to show that no matter what Gettleman wanted to achieve, he could never make a good move.
Toney wasn’t even the recipient he wanted. He had to trade down because he wanted DeVonta Smith, but the Eagles traded up ahead of the Giants to snap up the former Heisman winner. Drafting Toney was a desperate move, much like several decisions made by Gettleman during his tenure as GM, and just like signing Nate Solder for an exorbitant price, overthrowing Levine Toilolo, or overpaying Adoree’ Jackson, this one desperate move for a receiver could cost the Giants a lot of time.
