{"id":651857,"date":"2026-01-03T23:29:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T23:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/651857\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T23:29:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T23:29:18","slug":"why-giants-theo-johnson-was-at-knicks-game-despite-being-ruled-out-with-illness-for-week-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/651857\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Giants&#8217; Theo Johnson was at Knicks game despite being ruled out with illness for Week 18"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Giants tight end Theo Johnson missed the Week 17 game in Las Vegas with an illness and has already been ruled out of Sunday\u2019s season finale against the Cowboys.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Johnson, though, <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/01\/02\/sports\/shorthanded-knicks-come-out-flat-against-hawks-in-brutal-loss\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">attended the Knicks-Hawks game<\/a> Friday night at Madison Square Garden and smiled and waved when he was shown on the Garden video board.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Why was Johnson feeling well enough to attend a basketball game but not considered well enough to play football?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This raised all sorts of delusional \u201cGiants are tanking\u2019\u2019 theories on social media, as if they were purposely keeping a healthy player off the field to enhance their chances of losing in <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/12\/28\/sports\/giants-severely-hurt-chances-at-no-1-overall-draft-pick-by-beating-raiders-in-tank-bowl\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">order to claim the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:0.66447368;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38084435\" width=\"392\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/JohnsonPost.png\" alt=\"Theo Johnson at a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden, contradicting a tweet that says he is out sick from a Giants game.\" class=\"wp-image-38084435\"  \/>Theo Johnon\u2019s Instagram Story caption. @theo.johnson_\/Instagram<\/p>\n<p>Well, as it turns out, Johnson is dealing with an infection but not the flu or COVID, where being out in public is a risk to himself or others.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He is dealing with a noncontagious illness, but he was not at risk of spreading that illness to others.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am not sick,\u201d Johnson wrote in an Instagram Story early Saturday morning featuring a tweet showing him attending the Knicks\u2019 111-99 loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>That might indicate Johnson is not feeling sick. The Giants report that he is, indeed, sick.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo he\u2019s just got still this little bit of a sickness and this infection that we\u2019re just working through,\u2019\u2019 interim head coach Mike Kafka said Thursday. \u201cSo he\u2019s just kind of trying to clean it up. See where it goes.\u2019\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Johnson, a 2024 fourth-round draft pick from Penn State, finished second on the team (to Wan\u2019Dale Robinson) with 45 receptions for 528 yards.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He led the team with five touchdown catches, and Pro Football Focus lists Johnson with seven dropped passes this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38084446\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/84-new-york-giants-field-117706384.jpg\" alt=\"Tight end Theo Johnson #84 of the New York Giants on the field during warm-ups at MetLife Stadium.\" class=\"wp-image-38084446\"  \/>Theo Johnson leads the Giants with five touchdown catces. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n<p>Four Giants players were slowed with illness this past week.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Johnson was declared out for the game, wide receiver Jalin Hyatt is listed as questionable, while outside linebacker Abdul Carter and nose tackle Dexter Lawrence both missed practice time this week but have no injury designation for the matchup against the Cowboys.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Giants tight end Theo Johnson missed the Week 17 game in Las Vegas with an illness and has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651858,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,56,10290,6,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-651857","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-new-york-giants","10":"tag-new-york-knicks","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115833770544770047","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}