Kadarius Toney will always be part of Chiefs history, but time with team likely over

After Kadarius Toney emblazoned himself in Chiefs lore with a mesmerizing 65-yard punt return and a 5-yard touchdown reception in their 38-35 Super Bowl LVII victory over the Eagles, he was celebrating with teammates as coach Andy Reid ambled into the locker room in Glendale, Arizona.

When Toney saw Reid approaching, he turned toward him. Absolutely beaming.

“Appreciate you,” Toney said as they embraced.

A moment later, I asked him why demonstrating that was important to him and how he viewed Reid.

“He gave me opportunity,” Toney said. “I mean, most coaches, anything (goes) wrong, they hissy-fit, cry, complain or whatever, you know? Him, you mess up anything, he’ll come over and crack a joke with you. You know what I’m saying?

“He’s coming back to you if you mess up anything. He’s just a coach that you want to play for. You want to go out there and do all you can for him.”

That night, you could make a case that if Toney never did anything more than he did in that two-minute span, the trade that months before brought the Giants’ 2021 first-round pick here for two-draft picks was worth it.

Now it seems likely that case is closed after a perplexing 2024 preseason encore to a bizarre 2023 season that began with an appalling performance in the opener and ended with an inactive postseason — amplified by his profanity-filled late-January rant accusing the Chiefs of lying about him being injured.

Even after Toney on Thursday against the Bears registered his first positive yardage of the preseason with two catches for 26 yards, even with prized free-agent receiver Hollywood Brown likely to miss at least the opener against Baltimore with a clavicle injury, it’s hard to envision Toney emerging through impending cutdowns onto the 53-man roster.

Needing something like redemption after a season marred by deflections to opponents and the costly and controversial — but technically correctly called — offside penalty against the Bills, he certainly didn’t tangibly regain any stature among a crowd of receivers distinctly upgraded since the start of last season.

Not with a camp largely marked by ailments du jour.

Or in the rehearsal games in which his most memorable moment, alas, was committing two penalties on one play (for an illegal formation and holding) against the Lions last week.

Back in April during an offseason training period, Reid spoke of Toney as “arguably one of the most talented guys we have on the team” but punctuated it with a subtle imperative:

“You always hear about the reliability, the accountability, all of those things that go into it,” Reid said then. “So I’m expecting him to come back ripping and ready to go.”

But unless Reid has seen something that doesn’t meet the eye, and that’s entirely possible, Toney hasn’t visibly demonstrated that. Or any other persuasive reason he could be trusted any more now than a year ago.

So if it once seemed a mystery why the Giants would so soon part with such a tantalizing talent, it’s less puzzling now … even if the cause of his mercurial ways remain hard to understand.

When I asked Reid after the 34-21 loss to the Bears on Thursday to assess Toney’s camp and preseason and share what new he might have learned about him, Reid didn’t exactly endorse what he’d seen.

“We went through last year with him, so we kind of know who he is,” Reid said. “He’s a talented kid. He’s in a battle to make this team … but we’ve never questioned the talent there.”

It’s just about him staying healthy, Reid said.

But it also seems more and different than simply that.

Still, Toney is still only 25. Perhaps some day yet he will find himself as a football player and maximize his dynamic athleticism.

Maybe there’s even a scenario, blurry as it might be, in which the Chiefs still, or again, are in position to keep trying to crack the code.

Maybe Reid will come back to him, as he put it after the Super Bowl, in an entirely different way.

We all love comeback stories, after all, and otherwise seeing people make good on another chance.

Moreover, it’s truly a shame to see someone with such evident upside struggle to know how to harness it.

Here’s hoping he does, some day, some way.

But right here, right now, the player who made us hold our breaths with that preposterous Super Bowl punt return has made it inadvisable to hold your breath waiting to see him seize the opportunity he was so grateful for after that game.