The Giants will be down one of their veteran tight ends for the season. Levine Toilolo was carted off a Giants practice field Wednesday, and the team subsequently announced he suffered a torn Achilles.
This was set to be Toilolo’s second season with the Giants. While the Giants signed Kyle Rudolph to pair with Evan Engram, Toilolo was in place as the team’s top blocking tight end.
Toilolo agreed to a pay cut to stay in New York this offseason, reducing his 2021 salary from $2.95MM to $1.35MM. This represents a tough break for the ninth-year veteran. Toilolo, who turned 30 last week, played in all 16 Giants games last season. One year remains on Toilolo’s deal.
Beginning his career with five seasons in Atlanta, Toilolo succeeded Tony Gonzalez as the Falcons’ starting tight end. The former fourth-round pick was part of Atlanta’s Super Bowl LI-bound team and, after a 2018 stopover in Detroit, later rejoined Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco. Toilolo suited up for a second Super Bowl during his lone 49ers season.
New York does have some additional bodies behind Engram and Rudolph. Kaden Smith, who was also part of the 2019 49ers, remains on Big Blue’s roster. Fifth-year vet Cole Hikutini also resides on Big Blue’s roster.
While I feel bad for him, in the grand scheme of things it’s not that big of a loss. With Engram, Rudolph and Smith we are set at TE.
Oh wait! If only we had a 6’5” / 267 lbs for our 4th TE? Lol
It actually is a bigger loss than you think. Toilolo was the Giants’ only blocking tight end. None of the others did that particularly well. He was going to be important in the red zone for his blocking and 6’8” frame down there especially. I expect New York to sign someone else to take his place as a blocker.
It really isn’t a big loss. As someone who watched all the giants games, he had very little impact in the running game and blocking in the passing game. His loss is easy to ver come with using an extra lineman reporting in as an eligible receiver on running downs. As for the red zone, it’s why we spent all that money on Galladay and have players like engrams and smith for that.
Like Giants51 said, I was vey surprise they brought him back.
Sure, it’s not a season breaker, but you didn’t really have anyone to fill that role. Toilolo is pretty average at this point, but the role is not filled as of now. I’m saying that you can’t just write off the role. And Engram was pretty bad in the red zone, which is why the others were signed. We’ll see if Golladay helps, but he won’t be blocking down there.
I like how you described the situation as a “role” now being unfilled. A similar thing happened to the Vikings at weakside linebacker before last season. Our run-specialist LB, Ben Gedeon, was ruled ineligible to return to the field after his two 2019 concussions, and then in the process of COVID testing, his back-up as a run defender, Cam Smith, was found to have a heart condition requiring immediate surgery. After losing Smith, the Vikes seemingly brought in for a tryout every free agent ILB and MLB available who might be able to fill that early downs, run defense role.
As with Toilolo, it’s not always the player that matters so much as the role he plays, and to RockHauler’s point, for whatever reason, maybe the Giants want to have a true TE as their third TE in power formations instead of filling the job with an O lineman.
I’m very surprised they brought him back….
There goes my entire fantasy strategy for the year.
Quick recovery.