{"id":518555,"date":"2026-01-05T18:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T18:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/518555\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T18:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T18:12:16","slug":"giants-theo-johnson-annoyed-by-narrative-surrounding-knicks-appearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/518555\/","title":{"rendered":"Giants&#8217; Theo Johnson annoyed by &#8216;narrative&#8217; surrounding Knicks appearance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Theo Johnson gained unwanted notoriety Friday night when he was shown on the Jumbotron at Madison Square Garden <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/01\/03\/sports\/why-giants-theo-johnson-was-at-knicks-game-despite-being-ruled-out-with-illness-for-week-18\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sitting courtside at a Knicks game<\/a> the day he was ruled out for the Giants\u2019 final regular-season game with an illness.<\/p>\n<p>Social media users dug into that appearance. How could Johnson be at a game when he was too sick to play in Week 17 and also Week 18?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey made their medical designation, that was the team\u2019s decision,\u201d the second-year tight end said with some annoyance Monday as the Giants cleaned out their lockers. \u201cI was dealing with something, I\u2019m still dealing with something. I was not able to play this week.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t even know why I was discussed. I\u2019m not playing, I don\u2019t know why it\u2019s a big deal that I went to a basketball game.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:0.97853309;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38084456\" width=\"547\" height=\"559\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Johnson.png\" alt=\"Theo Johnson at Friday's Knicks game.\" class=\"wp-image-38084456\"  \/>Theo Johnson at Friday\u2019s Knicks game. @jschwartz115\/X<\/p>\n<p>The Giants explained that the second-year tight end was dealing with a non-contagious infection. That did not stop conspiracy theorists from accusing the Giants of tanking to lose for a higher pick in the NFL draft by not putting their starting tight end on the field.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen there\u2019s a narrative that people want to write, the first sign of things, they think that\u2019s what it is,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWhen in reality there\u2019s a lot of things people don\u2019t know about, the media don\u2019t know about and people just spring on that narrative rather than saying \u2018How about I see what\u2019s really going on\u2019 and I think that\u2019s what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Johnson has been to the Garden before and he said he was excited that night to take his brother, celebrating his birthday, to his first Knicks game.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.33507171;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38099304\" width=\"788\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/new-york-giants-tight-end-118331231.jpg\" alt=\"Theo Johnson speaks to reporters at Giants breakup day on Jan. 5, 2026.\" class=\"wp-image-38099304\"  \/>Theo Johnson speaks to reporters at Giants breakup day on Jan. 5, 2026. Charles Wenzelberg \/ New York Post<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was really important for me, a cool moment for me to be able to do that for him,\u2019\u2019 Johnson said.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson finished up with 45 receptions for 528 yards and a team-high five touchdown catches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Theo Johnson gained unwanted notoriety Friday night when he was shown on the Jumbotron at Madison Square Garden&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3768],"tags":[7,304,6,1136,7558,191,3810,3806,9,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-518555","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-knicks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-knicks","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-giants","13":"tag-new-york-knicks","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkknicks","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115843848454865782","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}