Joe Judge: Kadarius Toney’s limitations at 2nd rookie minicamp practice ‘not an injury situation’

Giants first-round draft pick, wide receiver Kadarius Toney, was limited during Saturday’s rookie minicamp practice.

Take a deep breath, Giants fans. The team’s first-round draft pick of this offseason — receiver Kadarius Toney — is not dealing with an injury.

The dynamic wideout sitting out after 30 minutes of work during the team’s second rookie minicamp practice Saturday afternoon raised some eyebrows.

However, head coach Joe Judge provided some clarity on the situation while speaking to the media thereafter.

“It’s not an injury situation, I think every player out here is kind of on their own program in terms of what’s best for them, what the schedule of the day is, and I think one thing we keep in mind with these guys is that they haven’t been with team sports now in over five months, and that’s something we have to consider when bringing them in,” Judge said. “And for a lot of these guys, it’s the first [football-related] organized activity they’ve really done in a significant amount of time.

“So that’s why we structure practice the way we do. There are different positions on the field, a lot of times for skill position players early in their careers, we look to make sure we don’t put two days together — that may put them in a stress position. This is an orientation weekend; our goal is to get them started so that this week coming up [the commencement of OTAs] they can jump in with our vets and they can jump in with our full offseason program and be moving and stay healthy.”

Judge later spoke on how the team could potentially utilize Toney when asked how similar his professional role will be to his prior collegiate role.

One of the more notable reasons the Giants decided to use their No. 20 overall draft pick on the former Florida Gator was because of his versatility — Toney sports great speed, elusiveness, and athleticism (sort of like former Big Blue star Odell Beckham Jr.).

“We’re going to look to play him to his strengths, so there’s going to be some things you’ll see that may look similar to what he did in college…we’re going look to go ahead and make sure that we create enough versatility in his game to play him in different spots, to play him within our system. But also, we’ll have to change our system like we do with everything to cater to our players,” the second-year head coach explained.