2023 NFL Breakouts: Second and third-year offensive players ready to explode ft. Desmond Ridder, George Pickens and more

#5, Kadarius Toney, Kansas City Chiefs (WR)

Kadarius Toney is primed to breakout in the 2023 NFL season

Coming to Florida as a top-500 overall recruit back in 2017, Kadarius Toney only had 604 receiving yards and another good 400 yards rushing through his first three years at Florida. He then broke out with 1,145 yards and 11 touchdowns on 89 touches as a senior.

When the Giants picked him 20th overall in the 2021 draft (after trading back with the Bears, who were moving up for the sliding Justin Fields), this was a heavily-discussed selection considering New York was often linked to another pass-catcher DeVonta Smith and to some degree one of the top-two corners that year.

With all three off the board at that point, they decided to move back, yet Toney was expected to produce in a major way for a wide receiver group that lacked any high-volume target. However, he only played 301 total snaps as a rookie, due to getting banged up on multiple occasions, catching 39 of 57 targets for 420 yards and no touchdowns.

This past season, there seemed to be a clear misunderstanding of what his role on this team should be and his medical status for New York, as he logged 109 snaps through the first seven weeks, before getting traded to Kansas City for a third and a sixth-rounder this year.

Injuries continued to be a story with the Chiefs, as he was inactive for three weeks and across the ten total games (including playoffs), he only was in the offensive lineup for 139 snaps. However, he was able to turn 27 touches into 294 yards and four TDs, including one score and a huge punt return setting up the eventual game-winning one in the Super Bowl.

Right around six feet, just over 190 pounds, this young man is an absolute spark plug. To put what he did in his debut campaign into context, his 2.14 yards per route run as a rookie rank behind only: Julio Jones, A.J. Green, Doug Baldwin, Odell Beckham Jr., Tyreek Hill, Juju Smith-Schuster, Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase, since the inception of Pro Football Focus.

That number barely decreased to 2.06 in year two, despite his average depth of target falling off from 6.5 all the way to just 3.6 yards, and if you just look at what he did in Kansas City that number was actually 2.63 yards per route run (2.5 in the playoffs).

The passer rating when targeting him also sky-rocketed to 135.6 (fourth-highest among WRs with 20+ targets). The way he can drop his hips and burst out of pivot or zig routes is rare. He has incredible start-stop quickness and sudden movement skills, which is how he was able to regularly create separation on those more intricate routes.

At the same time, he can take guys vertically and in particular off motion, he becomes a problem to stick with. Your safety dropping down into the hook area or as a robber better not try to cheat up or get locked in on the quarterback if Toney is in the slot, because the speedy receiver might run behind his back on deep crossers.

At the same time, Toney can bring his momentum to a halt and pluck the ball out of the air, as the defender overruns the catch-point. With a 39 ½-inch vertical jump, he has more of a jump-ball skill set than you may realize with the way he typically moves around the field.

Then, he has that herky-jerky style of run-after-catch ability, where coming out of Florida two years ago, I said that he will be responsible for tearing some ACLs (even though it may include his own, because it felt somewhat like not even he knew exactly which movements to anticipate).

However, what it does to defenders, as he takes those widened steps, drops his weight and makes people miss by planting hard off either foot, is making it really to break down and secure tackles in space. Yet, if he does have to go through defenders in his path, his contact balance to blast into contact and bounces off guys is almost odd at his stature.

Altogether, he’s produced 22 missed tackles forced across 65 regular season touches, whilst averaging 6.9 yards after the catch this past season. The impromptu ability to dip inside of blockers without having to slow down basically taking pop-passes on fly sweeps, on bubble screens or just in general navigating around traffic across the field is insane.

With that being said, Toney would certainly help himself by adding a little more control and pacing as a route-runner, to not need the pure explosiveness to shake guys, but work in different footwork and body language to set guys up. The way he moves does make him incredibly difficult to stay in front of, but it also contributes to his own injuries and he could become a more complete player, capable of stressing opponents in a more multi-faceted way.

About a third of the routes he ran were either screens or quick outs. He’ll definitely need to expand that to stay on the field for extended stretches and be taken seriously as a receiver. So far, he’s dropped five of 60 catchable targets for his career, particularly when it was put around his belt area and he let the ball get into his frame too much.

Toney isn’t overly interested in getting involved as a blocker, as he isn’t looking to actually engage with guys a whole lot. That’s in part why he was mostly tagged with screen-fakes and pulling defenders with him on speed outs – which can still be valuable in helping spring the ball carrier loose, to be fair.

However, by far the biggest reason for doubt with Toney of course is the injury concerns. He missed 11 of 49 potential games at Florida and so far in the NFL he’s missed 15 of 34 regular contests, with nicks and bruises at his upper, lower half and mid-section at some point.

There’s no guarantee Toney will stay healthy in 2023, or that he’s immersed himself into the offense in a way that would make him stand above the rest for a fairly unproven group of receivers.

Last year, he went over 32% of offensive snaps in just one game with the Chiefs, once he got traded there in Week 8, with just ten total across the AFC Championship game and Super Bowl. He also wasn’t in the lineup at all in two-minute situations. However, listening to the comments of general manager Brett Veach and members of the coaching staff, it gives me hope that we only saw glimpses of what he could look like as part of that attack.

With a talent like this, you simply find ways to get him onto the field and put the ball in his hands. If he can show growth as a route-runner now, to be able to produce within the structure of your typical dropback game, along with the designated touches, in order to keep defenses guessing when he’s used as eye-candy, catching passes from the best quarterback in the game today, I’m very excited for what this COULD look like.