Giants' Tommy DeVito will try to continue defying odds Sunday vs. Cowboys
Giants quarterback Tommy DeVito at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, Oct. 29, 2023. Credit: Errol Anderson
The odds weren’t in Tommy DeVito’s favor when the Giants signed him as an undrafted rookie, and the odds certainly won’t be in his favor on Sunday, when DeVito will complete his unlikely ascent to starting quarterback against the Cowboys in Dallas.
Which is why the Giants’ coaching staff is hoping to keep it simple: Go back to Pee Wee football. Go back to 11 guys on the field. And hope that everything that allowed DeVito to beat the odds and make his way onto an NFL roster somehow will be the thing that keeps them afloat against a Cowboys defense that manhandled them in Week 1.
“You try to trust your process,” quarterbacks coach Shea Tierney said Friday at the Giants’ training facility. “You don’t change much with what you’ve been doing with them since Day 1. It’s still football.
“I know he’s said to me earlier in the week, ‘It’s the same game I’ve been playing since I was a young kid.’ We’ve just approached it that way. There are 11 guys on the field. He knows what they’re doing. Just keeping it consistent for him, I think, is the biggest thing when you’re a young player. The more consistency you have, the easier it is for him to just go out there and play.”
It is, of course, far easier said than done. Though the Cowboys have lost Pro Bowl cornerback Trevon Diggs to an ACL injury, this is still a team that sacked Daniel Jones seven times in the season opener and tacked on two interceptions for good measure. Now, with Jones out for the season with a torn ACL and Tyrod Taylor nursing a rib injury, it’ll be up to DeVito to tame the beast.
It’s his first NFL start, his first full week of first-team reps, and it comes on the heels of a messy (but not completely hopeless) outing against the Raiders in mop-up duty. He was 15-for-20 passing for 175 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions in a 30-6 loss.
The focus this week has been on easing his transition to the big stage (but, paradoxically, doing it very, very quickly).
They’ve told him it’s the same game he’s always played, but as Brian Daboll said, “just playing a dang good opponent.”
“I think he’s done a good job of doing everything he can do up to this point of preparing the right way, both in the classroom, extra and then on the field,” Daboll said. “I just think there’s little things you go [over] each week, whether it’s kind of Football 101, formations, motions, defenses, pressure looks, indicators or different things across the league, maybe watch some other quarterbacks, watch him on the practice squad . . . He’s grown, I’d say, considerably.”
And though Sunday looks to be an uphill battle, Tierney did see things he liked.
“He’s very accurate, very compact,” Tierney said. “He does a really good job in the pocket as far as getting the ball out and he sees things really well. He does a really good job of being able to come over to you and explain what happened, what he saw and what he thought.
“He’s got a lot of confidence in a really good way in terms of talking to them [but he’s] not a guy that is overconfident. He just knows who he is. He’s authentic.”
Neal out. Tackle Evan Neal (ankle) will not play against the Cowboys and Daboll said the team is still discussing whether this injury will require an IR stint. Neal was in a hard plastic walking boot Friday and was limping heavily while using a crutch. Daboll also ruled out cornerback Adoree’ Jackson (concussion, neck) and running back Deon Jackson (concussion) . . . Outside linebacker Azeez Ojulari (ankle), wide receiver Parris Campbell (hamstring), running back Jashaun Corbin (hamstring), and guard Mark Glowinski (personal) were all questionable for Sunday.
Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.
