Kadarius Toney (WR, KC) - Fantasy Football Waiver Wire Pickups for Week 8

BALLER MOVE: Add in 12+ Team Leagues

ROSTERED IN: 25% of Leagues

ANALYSIS: News just broke a few minutes ago regarding a trade between the Kansas City Chiefs and the New York Giants. The former is sending a bunch of picks to the latter in exchange for second-year wide receiver Kadarius Toney, as reported by Tom Pelissero.

If you just read spreadsheets, you might think that Toney is the loser here going from the 6-1 Giants to the 5-2 Chiefs. Only, you know better than that. That might be the case to some extent (?) but not in fantasy football terms.

Toney is going from playing under Daniel Jones to doing so under Patrick Mahomes. That's already a win. Jones' best career finish in fantasy is that of QB24 in back-to-back seasons through his first two years in the NFL. Mahomes, in case you've been living under a rock, has reached QB1, QB5, QB6, and QB14 in the four years he's been the Chiefs' starter.

Moving on to a team-based context, the Chiefs have attempted 265 passes to the Giants' 192 through Week 7; in other words, about 38 to 27 targets per game have been available for skill-position players to enjoy.

TE Travis Kelce leads all Chiefs players with 60 targets (23%), followed by JuJu Smith-Schuster (18%), Marquez Valdes-Scantling (14%), and Mecole Hardman (9%). No running back has enjoyed a target share above 7%, which bodes well for Toney.

Toney himself hadn't been used that much (barely at all) by the Giants, appearing in just two games and getting three targets (two receptions) over 35 snaps played in the first seven weeks of the season--it must be said though that he has missed the last five games with a hamstring injury.

According to ESPN, he has told reporters that "his return has been delayed because he believes he tried to come back from an injury to his right hamstring too soon and injured his left hamstring." So we have to assume he's playing it safe and the Chiefs are trusting his word and potential healthy/safe comeback at some point.

Last year he appeared in 10 games (four of them as a starter) getting to 420 yards on 39 receptions but without scoring a single touchdown throughout his rookie season.

Toney will definitely enjoy more opportunities with the Chiefs than he's done with the Giants, which one has to expect. That is, of course, assuming he gets healthy and to the field at some point this season. The Chiefs boast JuJu, MVS, and Hardman as their main wideouts along with Kelce, so he will have to earn the reps, the snaps, the targets, and once there, come up with some receptions/productions to stay there and hold onto the WR3 role ROS.

It's hard to predict a lot of what will happen here, but something is true: Mahomes and the Chiefs' offense will at least turn Toney into a boom/bust play with a low floor but unlimited upside for the odd explosion here and there thanks to Mahomes' talents and opposing defenses not having enough eyes to put on all pass catchers.

Don't chase Toney crazily, but stash him in deeper leagues for when he's healthy, available, on the gridiron and trying to showcase the upside and potential that experts attached to him entering the NFL last year.

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