{"id":389376,"date":"2026-01-03T17:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T17:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/389376\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T17:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T17:08:09","slug":"giants-te-johnson-illness-attends-knicks-game-but-out-for-finale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/389376\/","title":{"rendered":"Giants TE Johnson (illness) attends Knicks game but out for finale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/raanan_jordan.png&#038;h=80&#038;w=80&#038;scale=crop.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Jordan RaananJan 4, 2026, 02:01 AM<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"icon-font-after icon-close-solid-after\" href=\"#\">Close<\/a>Jordan Raanan covers the New York Giants for ESPN and can be heard hosting on ESPN Radio. Raanan joined ESPN in 2016.<\/p>\n<p><a data-clubhouse-guid=\"378600ea-2397-8364-8399-b7c1606a49a7\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/nyg\/new-york-giants\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Giants<\/a> starting tight end <a data-player-guid=\"dc3eac09-7813-32ae-bec1-031d0e20964e\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/4429148\/theo-johnson\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Theo Johnson<\/a>, who attended a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nba\/team\/_\/name\/ny\/new-york-knicks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Knicks<\/a> game Friday night at Madison Square Garden despite not practicing all week with a noncontagious illness, will not play in Sunday&#8217;s season finale against the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"b0fc8fb7-9dbe-e574-9008-6f0ee7c6b234\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/dal\/dallas-cowboys\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas Cowboys<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The second-year tight end was shown on the scoreboard sitting courtside during the game, smiling and waving to the camera. He later reposted a picture taken and posted on social media by a New York Post reporter and responded, &#8220;I am not sick.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<\/p>\n<p>2 Related<\/p>\n<p>The Giants (3-13) said Johnson is dealing with a noncontagious infection, not the flu or COVID-19, where being around other people would not be a risk. Therefore the infection is an illness and why he was ruled out of Sunday&#8217;s game.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So he&#8217;s just got still this little bit of a sickness and this infection that we&#8217;re just working through,&#8221; interim coach Mike Kafka said Thursday. &#8220;So he&#8217;s just kind of trying to clean it up. See where it goes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Johnson returned to the Giants facility this week after missing last week&#8217;s win over the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"b18540eb-6f2b-534c-e7f9-9bd930518da9\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/lv\/las-vegas-raiders\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Las Vegas Raiders<\/a>. He is one of several players and coaches who have been dealing with illness this week.<\/p>\n<p>Outside linebacker <a data-player-guid=\"df4ecbf0-8676-3fbd-8563-25721d12b4ba\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/4725996\/abdul-carter\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Abdul Carter<\/a>, defensive lineman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/4035483\/dexter-lawrence-ii\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Dexter Lawrence II<\/a> and wide receiver <a data-player-guid=\"c887c67f-ea67-30a9-970c-f19f22e6670d\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/4692590\/jalin-hyatt\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jalin Hyatt<\/a> also missed practice because of illnesses. Hyatt is listed as questionable for Sunday&#8217;s game against the Cowboys. Carter and Lawrence weren&#8217;t given an injury designation. Johnson was the only one ruled out.<\/p>\n<p>Johnson is second on the team with 45 catches for 528 receiving yards this season. He leads the Giants with five receiving touchdowns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jordan RaananJan 4, 2026, 02:01 AM CloseJordan Raanan covers the New York Giants for ESPN and can be&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-389376","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}