Anonymous NFL Scouts Surface Yet Again, Opining on Gators WR Kadarius Toney

Every offseason, there are anonymous NFL scouts coming out of the woodwork, disparaging young athletes looking to make a living in the National Football League. This year is no different, and one of the targeted negative reviews is pointed at former Gators receiver Kadarius Toney.

As is always the case with these sorts of reports, this one comes with zero backing and likely a simple gut reaction to those that don't understand a hobby or an alternative profession beyond football.

In his annual scouting journal, The Athletic's Bob McGinn seeks out scouts to opine on the incoming draft prospects. Here is what one scout told McGinn when speaking about Toney:

“Basically, they tailored a package to his skill set. ‘We’re going to do these routes and get the ball in your hands.’ I kind of liked the kid. He was very real. He’s got some swagger. He actually has, like, two (recorded) albums and three additional singles. It’s a concern whether he has enough commitment to do it at this level with all the stuff he has going on.”

Now, there are some merits to scouts' evaluations or opinions on players. Sometimes they do get it right, especially when it comes to red flags off the field. Toney himself was under hot water after two separate incidents during his sophomore season in Gainesville.

One incident involved several members of the Florida football team and air-soft guns, and another involved Toney being pulled over in a traffic stop due to an AR-15 sitting in the backseat of his vehicle. The police, however, didn't charge Toney with a violation of Florida's open-carry laws, noting that he was in fact not in violation, allowing him to walk free.

Those incidents were three years ago now, and he has yet to be involved in another since. The scout's opinion has nothing to do with any off-field actions that could be seen as a red flag, but instead, his love for the game and his status as an amateur rapper is being questioned.

That's something that has become a common occurrence surrounding perhaps misunderstood athletes, or those that want to have options to make it elsewhere beyond the oftentimes, short life, that is the NFL.

This isn't the first time an athlete's "love for the game" has been questioned, either. One of the most glaring occasions would come during the 2010 NFL Draft season against former Florida State safety Myron Rolle, who was a Rhodes Scholar at the time. His passion for medicine and the game of football seemingly conflicted in the eyes of the NFL, and even some journalists.

Rolle was essentially reprimanded by the NFL, even though his collegiate coaches, mentors and everyone in between advised him to take the opportunity to study at Oxford, an opportunity that ended up being one of the best decisions of his life.

In an article written by SB Nation's Blake Griffin in 2014, it's noted just how sour everything turned for Rolle's NFL prospects after skipping out on his final year of college football to take the Rhodes scholarship.

"Turning down the Rhodes Scholarship would have been contrary both to that advice and to his own post-football career ambitions," Griffin wrote. "Accepting the scholarship was, in effect, a 'no-brainer.' Yet while everyone else encouraged him to have a 'Plan B,' the NFL did not. In the NFL, what others saw as wisdom was seen as weakness."

The same scouts that consider the NFL a short-lived lifestyle are oft-critical of young men attempting to do something else with their lives. In Rolle's case, it's medicine, Toney's rap music. It doesn't matter what the cause is, if it's not football, it's not right to NFL scouts. That, in and of itself, isn't right, either.

The same stories have surfaced time and time again in the past. This year's Super Bowl victory by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fielded one of its star playoff players in running back Leonard Fournette. Just prior to the 2017 NFL Draft, there were questions regarding his passion for the game.

Now, those opinions seem even sillier than they were when they surfaced years ago. Especially when you consider just how hard the running back worked to make sure he did not get trapped in the lifestyle he was surrounded with growing up.

Toney is no different. His situation is just that, he has a passion for multiple potential ways of living. His skills are clear, too. The concepts Florida ran for him last season did allow him to succeed, but that's how many wide receivers even in the NFL today are put in the position for.

There is some stock into what scouts say about players, of course, they've been in the profession, and some are still in it with good reason, however, year-after-year the love for the game conversation circumstances, and year-after-year those claims are inevitably proven wrong.