Giants tight end attends Knicks game despite illness ruling out draft-implications matchup vs Cowboys

New York Giants tight end Theo Johnson attended a New York Knicks game on Friday night despite being ruled out for the team’s Week 18 game because of an illness on the same day.

Johnson, 24, did not play in the Giants’ 34-10 win in Week 17 over the Las Vegas Raiders due to an illness, and did not practice all week. NFL fans took to social media, speculating if the Giants were holding Johnson out under the guise of an illness to help tank for a higher draft pick.

The second-year tight end added fuel to the fire, reposting a picture of himself on the Madison Square Garden jumbotron and captioning it, "I am not sick."

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The Giants said Saturday that Johnson has an infection, which is designated as an illness on the injury report, but he doesn’t have the flu or COVID, meaning he can be around others without being a risk. Johnson was first listed on the injury report with an illness last Friday.

"He’s just still got a little bit of sickness and just infection that we’re just working through. So he’s just kind of trying to clean it up, see where it goes," Interim head coach Mika Kafka said of Johnson, according to The Athletic.

With a loss last week, the Giants would have secured the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft regardless of Week 18 results. However, they blew out the lowly Raiders, meaning that Week 18’s results have major draft implications.

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If the Giants beat the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, they could drop as far as No. 7 in the draft order. If the Giants win and the Cleveland Browns, Tennessee Titans, Arizona Cardinals, New York Jets and Washington Commanders lose, they will drop to No. 7.

If the Browns, Titans, Cardinals, Jets, and Commanders win their respective games, a Giants win would be less consequential. For example, if the Browns and Titans win, and the Cardinals, Jets and Commanders lose, then the Giants would drop to the No. 5 spot with a win over the Cowboys.

If the Giants lose, they still have an outside chance of getting the No. 1 pick. For the Giants to get the No. 1 overall pick, they would need the Raiders to win, and two of the following four things to happen: The Seattle Seahawks beat the San Francisco 49ers, the Browns beat the Cincinnati Bengals, the Atlanta Falcons beat the New Orleans Saints, or the Chicago Bears defeat the Detroit Lions.

Those four games all impact the team’s strength of schedule compared to the Raiders.

Regardless, if the Giants lose to the Cowboys, the lowest they can pick is No. 2 overall. With a win endangering the team’s chances of a top pick, Johnson’s attendance at the Knicks game was notable, as fans questioned whether the tight end had an illness at all.

Johnson, who has five drops this season, has flashed some playmaking ability, with 45 catches for 528 yards and five touchdowns in 15 games.

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