The Draw Play

Farewell, sweet cutlets. Unless you pass waivers and end up on the practice squad.

Tommy lived the dream. The hometown kid with no chance got thrown into football games due to injuries and had himself a small moment. It lasted 3 games, then reality struck that he was a practice squad QB playing with the real boys and the dream ended. But for those 3 weeks, Tommy Cutlets was cool as hell. He had a signature celebration. He had a mafia enforcer as an agent. He had a nickname. He had our rapt attention.

A lot of Giants fans hate him now, for bad reasons. Those 3 games he won “cost” us Jayden Daniels or Drake Maye. Besides my obvious problems with tanking mentality, those fans aren’t even looking at those games correctly. The first game was against the Washington Commanders. He went 18/26 for 246 with 3 touchdowns, winning 34-19. If you’re the kind of goober who only looks at spreadsheets and avoids context like it’s infectious, you’d be the kind of guy who would assume DeVito was the reason for the win. You’d be wrong. DeVito wasn’t a bad player in the game, but it cannot be understated how awful that Washington team was, in that game especially. This is the Washington team who would draft second overall. Sam Howell was the QB. Washington turned the ball over roughly 57 times that game. The Giants offense barely had to try. That game was won by the defense. Blame them. Daniel Jones and Tyrod Taylor both would have won that game had they started instead.

The second game was a 10-7 win over the Patriots team that got Belichick fired. It was another game where the defense did all the work and DeVito just had to not mess up, and he didn’t. The third game is the only one you can kind of blame DeVito for. The Packers, a genuinely decent team, had an off day (especially on offense, because the Giants defense was acceptable that year) and Tommy led a game-winning drive to seal the victory. Daniel Jones definitely would have fucked that up. So that Packers win is the highlight of the DeVito story, and the next week everything went back to the normal sludge that is Giants football. I can’t stand how people hate DeVito for not losing those games. It’s his job to win them. It’s his dream to win them. It’s likely his only fucking chance (he wouldn’t know he’d get more chances the next year, which bombed anyway) to matter, and he did his best. I’m so happy that he got his little moment. I’m not going to pin a few modest performances on being the reason the Giants are stuck.

I’d say it’s over, but he acquitted himself acceptable as a backup option and could conceivably bounce around the league for a while earning some dough before he vanishes. I personally hope he clears waivers and sticks around on the practice squad, and functions as an emergency option. I like having him around and he had a great preseason. But I’d never begrudge him taking his chances wherever he can get them.