Kadarius Toney Drops: Are the Receiver's Hands Actually an Issue?

Thanks to the dynamic duo of Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid, the Kansas City Chiefs have evolved into one of the NFL's elite passing offenses. During the 2023 season opener against the Detroit Lions, though, there was an obvious issue: those passes have to be caught to matter.

While very few Chiefs left the field with a positive performance to their name, Kadarius Toney had a particularly ugly evening. The receiver had four drops on the night; one of those, which came in the fourth quarter, would have set up KC for at least a go-ahead field goal in the game's dying minutes.

As you might expect, fans were quick to pile on the former New York Giant. Mahomes, on the other hand, issued a public defense.

But are Toney's drops a big-picture problem? Or was this just a notably bad night in the office?

Let's take a closer look.

Toney was a notable standout of an ugly night

With Travis Kelce sidelined to protect his injured knee, the Kansas City Chiefs offense was already behind the eight ball. The tight end is more than a pass-catcher; he's an elite athlete who has incredible chemistry with Mahomes and draws the opposition defense's attention like a black hole. His absence meant someone else was going to have to step up, but no one answered the bell.

No. 15 spread the ball around, but no Chief pulled in more than four receptions. Security also proved to be a collective issue, with KC recording an ugly eight drops on the evening.

Toney was a notable offender, accounting for four of those errors. On one occasion, the ball bounced off his hands, turning into a momentum-changing pick-six. On another, he failed to hold onto a pass that would have put Kansas City in position to take the lead with under two minutes remaining.

Mahomes, as the quarterback and face of the franchise, refused to throw the receiver under the bus.

"I have trust in [Toney]," he explained. "He missed a lot of training camp, and obviously he wanted to play and fought [during] rehab hard so he could play and stuff's not always going to go your way.

"Obviously he would've wanted to catch a few of those in the game, but I've trusted he's going to be that guy that I go to in those crucial moments, and he's going to make the catch and win us some games like he did last year. So we're going to continue to work him in, get him more and more reps, and I'm sure that those drops will kind of disappear."

Head coach Reid shared a similar sentiment in his postgame press conference, saying: "It's unusual for the guys who dropped the ball to drop the ball. That's not what I've seen from them, and I wouldn't expect them to do that. You do that, and you take care of business there, and you're gonna be all right."

Social media, however, was a bit less understanding. Some pointed out the significance of Toney's drops:

Others preferred to poke a bit of fun at the Chiefs' struggles:

Either way, it was an ugly evening, and Toney ended up with the most egg on his face.

Toney's career drop rates aren't a disaster

While Kelce's return will undeniably stabilize the Chiefs' offense, Toney's Week 1 outing does raise questions about the club's depth. Can No. 19 be counted on as a reliable option? Or was his game-changing performance indicative of a larger trend?

Well, our first port of call is scouting reports from ahead of the 2021 draft. There were some red flags, like Glynn Morgan of NBC Sports writing that Toney, for all his athleticism, was "guilty of having inconsistent hands and losing focus on some routine catches. Classic 'running before catching the ball' is an example of the unnecessary lapse in concentration he displays at times."

Sound familiar?

But what about the wideout's time in the NFL? His drop stats can shed a bit more light.

During his rookie year with the Giants, Toney dropped two passes, giving him a drop rate (the percentages of targets dropped) of 2%. During the 2022 campaign, however, that number skyrocketed to 10%. There is more to that total, though, than meets the eye.

The receiver split that season between the Giants and the Chiefs. In New York, his drop rate clocked in at 33.3%, but that's skewed by sample size; he was only targeted three times and dropped one pass. Once he joined the Chiefs, Toney dropped one pass from 17 targets, giving him a 5.6% drop rate across those seven appearances.

Numbers also need context, so let's compare his drop rates to some other pass catchers.

What about Kelce, the Chiefs' top target and the man whose absence started the chain of events? His drop rate has fluctuated from 1.7% to 7.5% between 2018 and 2022, which is the limit of Pro-Football-Reference's advanced stats; last season, he finished at a relative middle ground of 5.3%.

Or how about JuJu Smith-Schuster, the man who would have been at the top of the receiving depth chart if the Chiefs could have afforded his contract? While he didn't record a single drop during the 2021 campaign, he posted a 5.9% drop rate during his one season in KC.

That all combines to suggest that Toney hasn't performed too far outside of ordinary bounds just yet. Could his hands stand to be a bit better? Of course, but it's not reasonable to fear he'll drop four passes every game across the entire season.

Toney hasn't exactly earned the benefit of the doubt

While we can draw conclusions from those numbers, they won't provide much solace for Toney on Friday morning. Not only is the receiver in the fanbase's doghouse, but he'll need to prove that he can be a reliable weapon going forward.

The Chiefs, for all their strengths, need a number two target after Kelce. That race is wide open, even if most of the competitors missed the starting gun on Thursday. Toney has a chance to claim that spot thanks to his sheer athleticism, but holding onto the ball is a non-negotiable part of the job.

Can No. 19 be a legitimate threat in the passing game? Or is he doomed to be a gadget guy, dabbling in jet sweeps and punt returns?

That question will not only shape his career but the course of the Kansas City Chiefs' upcoming campaign. And an answer will have to arrive sooner rather than later.