2023-10-16 12:00:59
the ball during the first quarter against the Denver Broncos at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on Oct. 12, 2023. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)Getty Images
Versatile slot receivers. University of Florida standouts. Nagging injuries. First-round draft picks selected two slots apart. Mercurial personalities. Game-breaking special teams returns in the Super Bowl.
The comparisons between Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Kadarius Toney and former NFL receiver Percy Harvin jump off the page.
“There are similarities,” ESPN/ABC college football analyst Dan Mullen exclusively shared.
Mullen was Toney’s college coach at Florida from 2018 to 2021 and Harvin’s offensive coordinator under Urban Meyer, who wanted to draft Toney to the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2021from 2006 to 2008.
For the Florida Gators, Harvin and Toney played the H position or slot receiver. But because of their versatility, Mullen also would line them up at tailback or motion them from the H position back into the backfield.
“We used (Toney) like he was a Percy Harvin,” Mullen said. “We ran a lot of the similar plays with those two guys.”
After starring at Florida, the apex of their professional careers came at the highest stage — the Super Bowl.
Harvin, the 22nd overall pick in the 2009 NFL Draft, returned the opening kickoff of the second half of Super Bowl XLVIII for an 87-yard touchdown for the Seattle Seahawks, putting the game out of reach.
In Super Bowl LVII, Toney, the 20th overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, returned a punt 65 yards to the Philadelphia Eagles’ five-yard-line. That was the longest punt return in Super Bowl history and set up the Chiefs’ final touchdown of the game.
Before the Seahawks’ playoff run, Harvin had missed the last six games of the regular season because of a hip injury and then missed the NFC Championship Game with a concussion.
Leading up to Super Bowl LVII, Toney missed games from Week 12 to Week 14 with an injured hamstring. He also missed even games as a rookie due to injuries and illness, all of 2023 training camp with torn meniscus in his knee, which required surgery, and is now battling a toe injury.
Though he scored 29 touchdowns in his first four NFL seasons, Harvin, who suffered chronic migraines during his career, missed 25 games during the first five seasons of his career.
“There’s another similarity between the two. Because they play so hard and because they play so physical,” Mullen said, “sometimes they’re prone to injury.”
yardage during the game against the Florida State Seminoles on November 24, 2007 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Fla. (Photo by J. Meric/Getty Images)Getty Images
Mullen attributes much of their injury history to playing bigger than their size. Toney is listed at 6-0, 193, and Harvin was 5-11, 200 during his playing days. Despite those statures they rarely went down without a fight (or to the sidelines).
That dogged determination is one reason Toney was slated as the Chiefs’ No. 1 wide receiver before hurting his knee on the first day of training camp.
The Chiefs love his ability to generate yards after the catch. It’s perhaps his best asset and one he shares with Harvin.
“Both of them could start and stop on a dime,” Mullen said. “But when they go again, they’re at full speed.”
They also have excellent football intelligence. Though Toney might not be the most eloquent while speaking in interviews, Chiefs coaches and staff lavished praise on how quickly he mastered Reid’s intricate offensive system, which typically takes a year or two to learn, after joining the team in late October.
“He picked up that stuff really easy,” Chiefs general manager Brett Veach said.
Like Toney, Harvin’s football IQ allowed him to play multiple positions on the field and know the blocking schemes in front of him.
Mullen calls them not only smart players, but also unique personalities who wear their hearts on their sleeves. But that can sometimes be a negative.
Harvin got in a televised shouting match with his Minnesota Vikings head coach Leslie Frazier and then altercations with Seahawks receivers Golden Tate and Doug Baldwin on his subsequent team.
Since retiring Harvin has gone public with his mental health issues experienced during his playing days, including an anxiety disorder.
The New York Giants traded Toney to the Chiefs for pennies on the dollar just a year and a half after selecting him in the first round partly because he fell into the coaching staff’s doghouse.
Then in 2023 Toney trolled the Giants on social media during the offseason and after Week One.
“When you get to understand them as person and kind of how they work and how they function and you can get on the same page with them, it’s amazing,” Mullen said. “But if you don’t, they’ll close you off in a hurry.”
Much like Mullen built trust with them, Reid, who stuck by his receiver following his spate of dropped passes in Week One, seems to have done so with Toney, and Toney in turn has professed his love for the Chiefs organization on many occasions.
catch during a game against the Florida State Seminoles at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on Nov. 30, 2019. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)Getty Images
Whether Toney, who has one year left on his four-year, $13.7 million rookie deal, remains with the Chiefs beyond 2024 or spends his career on several teams like Harvin remains to be seen.
Harvin, a 2009 Pro Bowler, earned $41,823,824, according to Over The Capduring his career from 2009 to 2016 with the Vikings, Seahawks, New York Jets and Buffalo Bills.
Time will tell whether Toney career continues to follow the same trajectory as Harvin’s, but they clearly are off to a similar start and share the same kind of versatile skillset.
“If you want to design offense,” Mullen said, “they’re both so fun and amazing to do things with.”
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I have written for Packers.com, Pro Football Weekly, ESPN The Magazine, the Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World and Rivals.com. After graduating from Northwestern University, I interned for the Buffalo Bills, where my duties included bedchecks during training camp. I have worked for two NFL teams and covered the NFL Draft, the NFL International Series, the Super Bowl and everything in between. During my football playing days at Pembroke Hill (Mo.) School, I was known for my bad knees and even worse blocking. Born and raised in Kansas City, I now live in Chicago but still have Winstead’s grease coursing through my veins. Follow me on Twitter @JFedotin
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