Philadelphia Eagles: The Kadarius Toney trade rumors are crazy

So, rumor has it the Philadelphia Eagles‘ rivals up I-95, the New York Giants, might just want to trade one of their wide receivers.

Okay, that’s normal enough; plenty of teams trade players for one reason or another, that’s nothing new. Which wide receiver are we talking about, Kenny Golladay? Darius Slayton? Sterling Shepard? Try Kadarius Toney, the YAC specialist out of Florida who the organization drafted 20th overall in the 2021 NFL Draft.

That’s… wow, you certainly don’t see that every day.

After showing a lack of playbook study, poor meeting behavior, and suffering through frequent injuries and two positive COVID tests in 2021, Toney hasn’t shown up to any of the Giants’ organized preseason activities under new head coach Brian Daboll according to Pat Leonard of the New York Dailey News, and the organization has, in turn, made it known that he isn’t a part of their long-term plans moving forward.

Should a team like the Eagles be interested? I mean, maybe, if Roseman misses out on a receiver like Garrett Wilson and wants a similar player for a fraction of the price, Toney could be in play, but even now, with Joe Schoen in play as New York’s GM, I don’t know how excited the organization would be to make an intradivision swap with Philly.

Why? Because with one relatively minor trade, the Philadelphia Eagles threw the New York Giants’ wide receiver plans into disarray.

The Philadelphia Eagles’ NFC East rivals have a wide receiver problem.

Heading into the 2021 NFL Draft, the New York Giants had a need at wide receiver. Odell Beckham Jr. was long gone, Sterling Shepard’s production had more or less settled into the good WR3 territory, and the team’s big free agent addition, Kenny Golladay, was coming off of an underwhelming campaign that saw him haul in a career-low 20 balls for 338 yards and was coming off of a hip injury that cost him the second half of his season.

Sure, they had Darius Slayton, who averaged 745.5 yards over his first two seasons in North Jersey, but would he be able to keep that production up? Especially in long-time Dallas Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett’s offense?

Needless to say, if the “Danny Dimes” experiment was going to take a step forward, having a premier pass catcher to ease his offensive transition would have helped exponentially.

Howie Roseman – fortunately or not, depending on your rooting interests – made things tricky for then-GM Dave Gettleman and forced him to maybe, just maybe, settle for a player he wasn’t 100 percent confident in.

You see, the Giants, like many teams in the NFL, viewed the 2021 NFL Draft as having three premier wide receivers deserving of a premier pick, Ja’Marr Chase, Jaylen Waddle, and DeVonta Smith. Armed with the 11th overall pick, the Giants felt confident that they could sit back, let the draft board come to them, and select whichever receiver came their way one pick before the similarly receiver-needy Eagles took the board at 12.

Through nine picks, things were looking good. While I’m sure Gettleman would have liked his pick of the litter of Chase, Waddle, and Smith, the latter was still on the board when the Dallas Cowboys took the clock at 10, and after drafting CeeDee Lamb in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft, another receiver was far from their biggest need in Round 1.

As long as no one traded with Dallas to select Smith at 10, New York could happily make the reigning Heisman Trophy winner the newest member of G-Men nation and make their fanbase very, very, very happy indeed.

… whops, that is what happened, isn’t it?

With Smith off the board, the Giants traded back with Chicago to allow the Bears to draft their new first-round quarterback, Justin Fields, at 11, Dallas selected Defensive Rookie of the Year winner Micah Parsons at 12, and the New York ultimately made Kadarius Toney the fourth wide receiver off the board via the 20th overall selection.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Toney had an okay rookie season that was largely eclipsed by the three wide receivers selected before him – plus Elijah Moore, Rashod Bateman, and running back Najee Harris, who were all selected after him – and now may be looking for a new home less than a year into his NFL career.

Huh, I guess that’s why they say don’t draft for need.

Who knows, could we ultimately see Kadarius Toney and the New York Giants work things out and play together this fall? Sure, plenty of trade requests go unanswered, as Furkan Korkmaz will tell you firsthand, but when it’s the team, not the player, looking to move on after less than one year, something tells me they’ll be open to deals that will turn more than a few heads. Fortunately, the Philadelphia Eagles don’t have that problem… unless you believe the rumors that Jalen Reagor could be moved on during the draft, then they have almost the exact same situation just a few seasons deeper into the experiment.