Fantasy Alert: Kadarius Toney Won't Be Rushed into Chiefs Debut, per Andy Reid

Fantasy football players may have rushed to add Kadarius Toney after he was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs, but you may want to think twice before rushing him into your starting lineups.

"I'm not expecting him to learn the whole offense in a day," head coach Andy Reid told reporters on Monday. "I think it will be a gradual process going forward, even though he is a smart kid, so I'm sure he'll pick it up relatively fast. He hasn't played for a few weeks here. So getting him back in the swing of things and the speed of it and all will be important, and then we'll just see. But he's a nice addition. I'm just not going to rush him into something that he's not comfortable with or I'm not comfortable with."

The Chiefs traded a conditional third-rounder and a sixth-rounder, both in the 2023 draft, to the Giants for Toney. The young wide receiver was a first-round pick by New York in the 2021 NFL draft, but things soured rather quickly between the two sides.

Injuries had limited him to just two games this season, though Toney indicated in a since-deleted tweet that he was healthy at this point despite appearing on the Giants' injury report.

There's no doubt that Toney has intriguing playmaking ability and upside. He turned plenty of heads during his rookie season when he lit up the Dallas Cowboys to the tune of 10 catches for 189 yards in an October loss.

He's a real threat in space, and if there is one thing this Chiefs offense is good at, it's getting its playmakers open in space:

The question is where Toney will fall in the pecking order, with tight end Travis Kelce the top dog and JuJu Smith-Schuster, Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Mecole Hardman already carving out roles at wide receiver.

"We've got a handful of guys that are very capable, and I joke about it, but I mean you have one football and you can only spread it around to one person at a time," Reid told reporters. "We try to (utilize) everybody's strengths and then work on whatever weaknesses they have. That allows us to get guys in at least a decent position to do what we think they can do best. It won't be any different with him than the other guys."

The Chiefs wouldn't have traded for Toney if they didn't believe in his ability. But it's fair to question whether he'll make much of a fantasy impact, at least initially, in a new scheme surrounded by other weapons Patrick Mahomes can utilize.