#Giants’ Kadarius Toney takes first snaps with starting offense

Considering his Giants’ career started with wearing the wrong-sized cleats, every step forward counts for rookie Kadarius Toney.

So, here is another mini-milestone: The first-round pick took his first snaps with the starting offense in 11-on-11 periods during Saturday’s practice. Taking advantage of an opportunity created by Kenny Golladay’s hamstring injury and Darius Slayton’s rest day, Toney, who was eased into the first two weeks of training camp after recovering from a COVID-19 exposure, caught a pass from Daniel Jones.

“I see a guy who’s doing a good job taking it from the meeting to the field,” head coach Joe Judge said. “For any young guy, it’s important to demonstrate that you can just hear the call, relay it, line up and play. He’s been really good in terms of transferring the material within the details [of] the assignment.”

In order to capitalize on Toney’s unique skill set, which included jet sweeps at Florida, there is a need for the Giants to increase their usage of pre-snap motion after ranking No. 22 in the NFL last season. Toney motioned down the line of scrimmage a few times during practice.

“You look at our offense right now, and you can obviously see this time of year there is a lot of movement,” Judge said. “It’s great for our defense as well. It forces communication on defense and the adjustments they’re going to show.

“Offensively, it forces our guys to break the huddle and start building on what they have to retain.”

Taking a page from former Giants receiver Golden Tate, Toney, a high school quarterback, also showed off his arm when he caught a punt and threw the ball back 50 yards.

“Having K.T. out there and doing more and more each day,” Judge said, “it’s all been positive.”

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Safety Xavier McKinney addressed, for the first time, his big hit on Corey Clement that was the catalyst for Tuesday’s team-wide brawl.

Judge previously called McKinney’s hit a “violation” of the expected tempo for that period of practice, but McKinney wouldn’t specify if he meant to deliver the kind of hit that compelled Evan Engram to jump to Clement’s defense and Logan Ryan to knock over Engram.

“Practice, we might not get into it, we might get into it,” McKinney said. “We compete as a team, and then we come back in here and we’re all brothers at the end of the day.”

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Cornerback Sam Beal exercised the COVID-19 opt-out clause last season and has played six games since he was a 2018 third-round choice in the supplemental draft. It appears he has been slow to return to form, but one-on-one practice drills are designed to put defensive backs at the disadvantage.

“It’s a lot of improvement from Sam on a daily basis,” Judge said. “We’ve got to be in position to stick our foot in the ground and accelerate to either break up a pass, intercept the pass, and put ourselves in position to make a tackle in the open field and not give up a big play. That’s something I see Sam working on.”

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The Giants signed defensive back Chris Johnson, who originally signed with the Texans in 2019 after going undrafted. They also reportedly claimed rookie tight end Jake Hausmann off waivers from the Lions, hoping the Ohio State product can provide some of the blocking lost to Levine Toilolo’s season-ending injury.