BIOGRAPHY
Oday Aboushi was born on June 5, 1991, in Brooklyn, New York. He is an offensive guard in the NFL.
Aboushi is the ninth of ten children born to Palestinian parents who immigrated to New York from Beit Hanina, a Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem, Aboushi speaks English and some Arabic. He attended Xaverian High School in Brooklyn, where he was a member of the Xaverian Clippers high school football team. Aboushi attended the University of Virginia, where he played for the Virginia Cavaliers football team from 2009 to 2012. During his college career, he started 37 of 43 games in which he appeared. As a senior in 2012, he was a first-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) selection.
The New York Jets selected Aboushi in the fifth round, with the 141st overall pick, of the 2013 NFL Draft. The Jets signed him to a four-year rookie contract on May 10, 2013. Aboushi played in all 4 preseason games in 2013 but no regular-season games. In 2014, Aboushi started 10 games from Week 7 through Week 17, drawing his first start at left guard on Thursday Night Football against the New England Patriots.
He is also a practicing Muslim, one of few in the NFL. During Ramadan, which fell every year during training camp season at Virginia, he fasted from dawn to sunset every day. He was one of almost a dozen Muslim athletes honored by the U.S. Department of State for his contributions in 2011. He is one of the first Palestinian players in the NFL.
He has also played for the Houston Texans, Seattle Seahawks, Oakland Raiders, and Arizona Cardinals. On March 14, 2019, Aboushi signed a one-year, $2 million contract with the Detroit Lions. He recently signed with the Los Angeles Chargers in 2021.
