Giants' Oshane Ximines knows firsthand injury risk Jets are taking with Aaron Rodgers
Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers is sacked by Oshane Ximines of the New York Giants at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on October 9, 2022 in London. Credit: Getty Images/Mike Hewitt
Aaron Rodgers is attempting to change the course of Jets history.
Oshane Ximines already has changed the course of Aaron Rodgers’ history.
It was Ximines, a backup edge rusher, who found himself charging straight toward Rodgers on the final play of last year’s Giants-Packers game in London. As Rodgers launched a desperation throw, Ximines reached for the ball and wound up chopping the quarterback’s throwing hand.
The ball fell incomplete, which is what Ximines wanted. The Giants won the game, another of Ximines’ goals.
But Rodgers also suffered an avulsion fracture to his right thumb, which was an unintended consequence. That injury — stemming from that play — was pointed to throughout the rest of the season as Rodgers put up disappointing numbers, the Packers failed to make the postseason and, eventually, Green Bay decided to move on from its future Hall of Famer.
Forget Jets general manager Joe Douglas and owner Woody Johnson and Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst. The real catalyst to Rodgers’ move to the Jets was Ximines, even if he downplays it himself.
“Oh, [expletive],” he said on Monday when the dots between that play and Rodgers’ new home were connected for him. “I haven’t really thought about that . . . I knew it was a Hail Mary play. And you know what Aaron Rodgers does on those kinds of plays. His arm is one-in-a-million. So I just tried to get there as best as I could.”
It almost looked like a high-five when Ximines hit Rodgers. It turned out to be the Jets who eventually celebrated.
Did they ever send Ximines a thank-you card for his admittedly peripheral role in their reinvention this offseason?
No.
Maybe they should have, though, because on Saturday night in the final preseason game of the summer, the Jets plan to have Rodgers taking snaps. While there won’t be anyone from the Giants looking to make a statement for himself by taking out the Great Green Hope, Ximines’ mere presence in that same game — and likely his playing at the same time — should remind everyone that strange things happen when bodies start crashing into each other on NFL fields.
And it will be why this otherwise meaningless contest will represent some of the most nerve-wracking viewing for Jets fans in years, preseason or otherwise. They likely won’t relax until Rodgers is safely back on the bench in Bubble Wrap.
Given all that can go wrong in the uncontrolled circumstances of a game — particularly with an unsettled Jets offensive line going up against a defense that has no problem eschewing preseason customs and throwing exotic blitz packages at opponents — it’s a little shocking that the Jets will be putting Rodgers in even the slightest chance of harm’s way.
Even the guy who altered the trajectory of his career was a bit stunned by that decision.
“Yeah, that’s pretty surprising,” Ximines said. “I would think they’d sit a guy like that out. But I’m sure he would want to knock some rust off.”
The Giants, then, will be happy to oblige with the knocking.
If Rodgers needs preseason snaps, it probably would have made more sense to have played him this past weekend against the Bucs. That way any little inadvertent tweak that could pop up — the way his calf injury did in the spring — would have the extra week to heal before the opener.
It also would have been a much better gesture toward the fan base and likely drawn a larger crowd into MetLife. This week’s game will be a Giants home game populated by Giants season-ticket holders; last week’s was the Jets’ lone preseason home game.
Illustrating the absurdity of preseason football in general, there were hundreds if not thousands of fans who showed up to that game wearing their brand-new No. 8 Rodgers jerseys. Some of them were bought at the concession stands in the concourse that very night, while the one guy of note who wasn’t sporting one was Rodgers himself.
The Giants have taken a back seat to the Jets as far as attention goes these last few months, and for the most part, they are happy to cede the offseason and preseason spotlight to their stadium cohabitants. Brian Daboll shrugged at that dynamic.
“Really, I’ve got my team to worry about,” he said. “[Rodgers] is a heck of a player, one of the best to ever do it. All that other stuff, I’m not a storyteller or a writer, so I just try to focus on our football team getting better.”
On Saturday, for the first time since last preseason, the two teams will be on the same stage.
Even then, though, every New York football fan will be focusing on Rodgers.
Half of them will be watching to see how their Giants defense fares against one of the top quarterbacks in the game.
The other half will be white-knuckling their way through his appearance — just wanting it to end with, for the first time since he arrived, absolutely no news value whatsoever.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
