When Shakespeare wrote, “It is a tale told by an idiot…signifying nothing,” he was actually writing about the New York Giants.
The ’08 and ’12 Super Bowl runs of my youth are a fading memory. Since then, it’s been misery, frustration, and a whole lot of unintentional comedy. Speaking of which, enter Tommy DeVito.
Not to be confused with Joe Pesci’s character in Goodfellas, this Tommy isn’t a mobster (as far as I’m aware). He is Italian, though. Very much so. If you weren’t tipped off by the surname, look no further than his touchdown celebration, an upturned pinched-fingers gesture with an accompanying bounce of the wrist that apparently won the 2023 Bud Light Celebration of the Year award, which feels right.
Yes, Tommy was pretty much a walking Italian-American stereotype. He was a Jersey native. He raved about his mother’s cooking. He still lived with his parents, despite being in his mid-20s and earning a six-figure salary. He even pitched this as a competitive advantage, saying, “I don’t have to worry about laundry, what I’m eating for dinner, chicken cutlets and all that is waiting for me when I get there. My mom still makes my bed. Everything is handled for me.”
I use the past tense here because Tommy DeVito is no longer employed by the New York Giants. He was cut yesterday, as I write this, and I’m devastated. I even wore my Tommy Cutlets novelty t-shirt two days in a row, in memoriam.
You must wonder why I miss Tommy so much. He was lousy in limited action last year, and although he galvanized the Giants the year prior, many argued that was detrimental to the team’s long-term plans, since they could’ve secured a better draft pick had they lost more games. Even when he was winning, analysts and podcasters remained dubious, if not downright disbelieving.
That’s because Tommy doesn’t compare favorably with other quarterbacks in the NFL. He has a relatively slight frame, along with below-average speed, accuracy, and arm strength. Stephen A. Smith even said that DeVito being the “high point” of the Giants’ ’23 season “tells you how bad they are as a team.”
Well, I must be part of the problem, because Tommy is my favorite Giant since Eli Manning. (That distinction used to belong to Saquon Barkley, but the second he signed with the Eagles, he was dead to me.)
The simple explanation is that Tommy is a meme on two legs, but I think there’s something deeper at work here. It’s not like I was the only one entertained by the guy’s antics; there were numerous articles written not only about Tommy, but about his beloved parents, and even his agent, who dresses like Frank Sinatra and appears to have made his own Wikipedia page. In short, people really enjoyed this Jersey guido. And I have a theory as to why.
When the average fan watches a quarterback like Josh Allen, I doubt they see much of themselves in him—physically, at least. Sure, Josh seems like a down-to-earth guy, but few sports fans are six-foot-five, weigh 240 pounds, sling a football 80 yards downfield, and can also truck NFL linebackers. “Freak” is often the descriptor attributed to Allen, a word defined by the New Oxford American Dictionary as a “person with unusual physical development.”
Tommy, on the other hand, isn’t all that unusual. At six-foot-two, he’s tall, but not freakishly so. He’s talented enough to make NFL rosters, but not quite good enough to keep a starting job.
This, I think, is the root of Tommy DeVito’s appeal (aside from his unabashed refusal to leave his parents’ home). He looks and acts like a more-or-less average person, give or take some quirks. He seems like somebody you could’ve gone to school with (and if you attended Syracuse University circa-2018, you actually did). For some viewers, he might not differ much from they themselves. I mean, I’m six-foot-two. I’m Italian-American. I don’t wear my initials on a gold chain around my neck, but you get my point. Tommy’s just a guy who succeeded, at least for a time, even when most thought he couldn’t.
We love sports for the outliers, yes. There’s no other person on the planet like Simone Biles, or Shohei Ohtani, or the aforementioned Josh Allen, or that hot-dog-gorging creature Joey Chestnut. But there are many people like Tommy DeVito, people who excel in the unlikeliest circumstances. And that’s why I’ll miss him.
Well, that and the merch. That was always fun.
Kyle A. Massa is a comedy author of some sort living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife, their daughter, and three wild animals. His published works include eight books, along with several short stories, essays, and poems. When he’s not writing, he enjoys reading, running, and drinking cheap coffee.