The 2023 fantasy football season is back and better than ever as drafts fire off across the nation. Now is the time to dive into Kansas City Chiefs WR Kadarius Toney‘s 2023 fantasy football projections to determine whether or not managers are receiving a value on draft day. Is this the year Toney breaks out and takes the WR1 role in KC, and should he be a player you draft this year?
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Kadarius Toney’s 2023 Fantasy Projection
As 2023 fantasy football redraft lobbies begin to fill, few players coming into this year will be more polarizing than Toney.
Is he elite? Is he even average? Does anyone know anything? Truth be told, I’m not sure anyone knows, and Toney’s stats through the first two years are pedestrian at best.
For his career, Toney has just 77 receptions and 591 receiving yards. He had one game as a rookie where he recorded 189 yards on 10 receptions, but after that, he has only two other games with over 13 fantasy points.
Even since joining the Chiefs, Toney saw, at most, five targets and a 44% snap share in a game. In the Super Bowl, he had just 11 snaps. However, when he was on the field, it was almost as if the play was designed to go to Toney.
Although we need to forget about the draft capital, as that was Dave Gettleman, being well, Dave Gettleman, Toney’s upside is absolute. He’s drawn a target on 30% of his routes over the last two years, which ranks fifth amongst wide receivers, with an average of 2.3 yards per route run, which is 13th.
Speaking of that Super Bowl performance, he had a touchdown and 83 total yards, including his two punt returns on those 11 snaps.
Managers Should Pump the Breaks a Bit on Toney in 2023
As I said, Toney touches the ball when he’s on the field. But you can’t keep him on the field.
Toney has missed 19 of 34 possible games and, over the last two years, has just 267 total routes. Justin Jefferson and Tyreek Hill have nearly that many receptions over the same period. This is why using efficiency metrics can be easily cherry-picked due to the small sample size. Remember, numbers don’t lie; people and context do.
The concern is Toney is not that great of a receiver. Remember, he was being coached on how to run routes during the Senior Bowl. And if you look at what he did on the field, according to Matt Harmon’s Reception Perception, Toney was in the 16th percentile in success rate vs. man, 17th vs. zone, and 27th vs. press. That’s about as underwhelming as it gets.
But at the end of the day, Toney is in a legitimate shot to be the No. 1 receiver on the team that is likeliest to lead the league in passing with the best quarterback walking the planet in Patrick Mahomes.
With JuJu Smith-Schuster gone, Toney is competing with Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Skyy Moore, and rookie Rashee Rice for the WR1 spot, but in reality, the No. 2 target behind TE Travis Kelce.
At this point, we know what Kansas City will do: spread the ball around to anyone and everyone. While Toney has the upside to be a breakout player this season, expecting him to see 120+ targets or stay healthy for all 17 games is likely unrealistic. Nothing either in his career or how the Chiefs operate suggests this is the likely reality in 2023.
With Kelce the only player on the roster projected to see over 125 targets, Toney is currently projected to record around 50-55 receptions for 575-625 yards and about five touchdowns, with roughly 10-15 manufactured rushes for 100-120 yards and a touchdown.
Should You Draft Kadarius Toney This Year?
Toney is unquestionably one of the players I’m intrigued by. Those brief little flashes on the field suggest someone who should be performing better than they are. But it doesn’t matter if the asking price is too high.
Based on current ADP across multiple sites, Toney is being drafted as the first Chiefs receiver off the board and as the WR45 with an ADP of around 110, which places him at the beginning of the ninth round. That said, it varies based on the site, with some seeing him going as early as 90 and others as late as 155.
If I had to choose the likeliest receiver who would break out for the Chiefs, it would be Toney. He’s priced adequately as the WR45 but given how we’ve seen Kansas City’s offense operate without Hill, managers might be better off just taking the cheapest player. More than likely, they’re going to be in the same target range.
Between Toney, MVS, and Moore, I wouldn’t be surprised if they finish the season in the 75-85 target range and within 10 spots of each other in end-of-season fantasy standings. At least this way, rather than pulling hairs out on which player to draft, the easiest solution is to take whoever slides the latest.
Although I won’t be reaching for Toney in redraft leagues this fall vastly above his ADP, I will have a few shares on the chance that he can be what all of his adamant believers say he’ll show in 2023. That is, as long as DeAndre Hopkins doesn’t ruin the party.