For many New York Giants fans, the season was lost.
The team started the year with a 40-0 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, and were just 2-7 when they faced the Las Vegas Raiders on November 5. That’s when starting quarterback Daniel Jones went down with a torn ACL. In a gruesome twist of fate, backup quarterback Tyrod Taylor sustained a rib injury just one week prior, making him unavailable, too.
It was the final nail in the coffin of the Giants’ 2023 season. Or, at least, that’s how it seemed.
Enter Tommy DeVito, Italian-American Jersey man-of-the-people and the Giants’ third-string, undrafted, rookie quarterback.
DeVito lives with his parents and eats chicken cutlets for dinner. He does press in a black tank top and a diamond-encrusted “TD” chain. His agent wears an all-black suit and a matching fedora (“He looks like Johnny Fontane from ‘The Godfather,’” legendary quarterback Peyton Manning said.) And when the mood strikes — like after throwing a particularly lethal pass — he raises his fingers in a classic, vaguely Italian pinch.
Put simply: He’s a delight, a hometown hero that has managed to inject the downtrodden Giants organization with a dose of optimistic energy. Who doesn’t want to cheer for a quarterback who grew up a few miles away from MetLife Stadium, one of Jersey’s own? Though the Giants sustained a beating against the Cowboys in DeVito’s first game as a starter, the team is now on a three-game winning streak.
Now, the Giants have momentum, and the team could even secure a playoff berth. And though the recent success isn’t all thanks to DeVito, whose play can be spotty, the young North Jersey native has been inescapable, both in the tri-state area and online.
“I love the whole storyline,” running back Saquon Barkley told Fox Sports. “I love that he’s from Jersey, he lives with his parents, and he’s the starting quarterback of the New York Giants. That whole thing is something I’d do in ‘Madden.’ I would go and draft or pick an undrafted guy and put him on my team and just make him into a superstar.”
Breweries in New Jersey are selling beers in his name. Online, “The Sopranos” and “Goodfellas” comparisons are endless, and a video of him ranking his favorite Italian foods rapidly went viral. The state of New Jersey posted on social media about his family’s tailgate.
And, after he referenced eating chicken cutlets with his family in an interview, the dish has practically become the national food of the New York Giants and earned him the nickname “Tommy Cutlets.”
“Every other sport is absolutely desperate to generate stars and the NFL is like ‘The Giants have an Italian guy’ and it’s a national story,” wrote Kevin Clark, host of ESPN’s “This is Football” podcast. “I love this sport. I love this country.”
It doesn’t seem like the hype will die down any time soon. Following DeVito’s Monday night performance against the Packers, head coach Brian Daboll told reporters that the quarterback job was his, saying “Still got stuff to work on, but like I said two or three times last week, I think he’s a young player that’s doing the right things and making the most of his opportunity. He earned the right to play today, and he earned the right to play the next week. The kid’s done a good job.”
And so, for at least one more week, the Christmas miracle of DeVito will continue. This year, for the Giants, the savior is Italian and Jersey-bred.