The Kansas City Chiefs will have the opportunity to accept or reject wide receiver Kadarius Toney’s fifth-year option under his rookie contract during the 2024 offseason.
The Chiefs aren’t expected to select Toney’s fifth-year option, according to PFF’s Brad Spielberger, who made projections on the fifth-year option decisions for all 32 NFL teams.
“While the trade to acquire him was arguably worth it merely for two game-changing plays he made in the 2022 Super Bowl, there’s a very small chance this option will get exercised,” Spielberger wrote on March 19. “Toney was a healthy scratch to close out the 2023 season for the Super Bowl champion Chiefs.”
Kadarius Toney will have one more season with the Chiefs to prove his worth.
By rejecting Toney’s fifth-year option, Kansas City is effectively giving him one more season (2024) to make a lasting impression on them before he becomes a free agent in 2025. The Chiefs would probably need to offer Toney a multi-year contract if he performs well enough the next season for them to want to keep him.
In the unlikely event that the two-time defending Super Bowl champions choose to exercise Toney’s fifth-year option, which would be a startling move, Toney’s basic salary and cap hit in 2025 would be $14.4 million and $14.4 million, respectively, according to Spotrac.
Toney has had a difficult time in Kansas City, to put it mildly. He has produced inconsistently on the field, as well as clutch Super Bowl moments. Then there is the off-field behavior, which took many various forms, including making accusations against the team in public and stirring up controversy among the supporters of his previous team, the New York Giants.
Spielberger is therefore correct when he believes that the Chiefs cannot assure themselves of two more seasons with Kadarius Toney.
If Toney performed well in 2024, the Chiefs—a team that is still eager to add receivers—would probably welcome him back in 2025, even after signing veteran Marquise “Hollywood” Brown to a one-year contract. Naturally, at the appropriate cost.
Toney would have to produce at a far higher level of consistency than he has since joining the NFL in 2021 in order for that to occur.
NFL Media reports that the Chiefs have until May 2 to select Toney’s fifth-year option.
Hollywood Brown Is Already Using Patrick Mahomes
Regarding Kansas City Chiefs wide receivers who are having a breakout season, Brown has already been to Texas to train with quarterback Patrick Mahomes. In images that Mahomes posted to Instagram, the two Kansas City players and second-year wideout Rashee Rice were shown together.
Brown wasted no time in getting to know his new quarterback after formally signing with the Chiefs on March 18.
“Looking in from the outside, he seems like a very passionate guy, and I’m a very passionate person,” Brown remarked of Mahomes on March 18 at his press conference for the first time. “He will do whatever it takes to win because he wants to win. You want to play with someone who will bring out the best in you and help you advance your skills, and that’s the person you want to play with. He seems to be one of those men, in my opinion.
