Giants Country

Why Giants Went With Tommy DeVito Over Drew Lock at Quarterback 

There's more than just the $23 million injury guarantee. This is also about the future.

Patricia Traina

Oct 28, 2024; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; New York Giants quarterback Tommy DeVito (15) warms up before the game against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Acrisure Stadium.
Oct 28, 2024; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; New York Giants quarterback Tommy DeVito (15) warms up before the game against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Acrisure Stadium. / Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images
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The surprise of the new week over at 1925 Giants Drive isn’t so much that the New York Giants decided to bench struggling starting quarterback Daniel Jones–that much was expected after Jones’s performance continued to deteriorate as the season went on, making it impossible to continue running him out there.

The Giants' surprise was that they turned to third-string quarterback Tommy DeVito over backup Drew Lock, whom the team signed to a one-year $5 million guaranteed contract. 

Why move to DeVito, the team’s emergency quarterback for the first ten games of the season, ahead of Lock? 

“After evaluating a bunch of things and looking at a lot of tape and being around Tommy last year where he created a little bit of a spark for us, that's the reason why we're going with Tommy,” Daboll said, adding that Lock will be the team’s backup meaning that Jones now becomes the emergency quarterback. 

“It's never an easy conversation to have with the players, but I felt like this was a necessary move for us, and I look forward to working with Tommy and getting him ready to go against Tampa.”

The decision, Daboll added, was not reflective on his confidence in Lock.

"I got a lot of confidence in Drew, the way he's handled himself since he's been here, and he handled this well too. Being a professional.," he said.

"Again Tommy, we've been with Tommy here for a little bit. He's done a nice job, I would say, throughout practices here. But also, we have something to lean on by going back and watching him operate some of our stuff from last year. This is no indication on Drew whatsoever. He's been excellent for us. It was more about what I felt Tommy gave us."

Lock, in what little action he’s had since signing with the Giants, hasn’t looked like much of an upgrade over Jones. His preseason injury and his cameo appearance in the blowout loss to the Eagles certainly didn’t help his case either.  

Daboll wouldn’t say if DeVito outplayed Lock in practice, claiming both did “a good job” being ready when their numbers were called. 

“It's, you know, he liked to be the starter, and I understand that. But again, the spark that Tommy gave, not just, I'd say, the offense, but the team last year, I think, is important.”

Still, it’s difficult to ignore the role finances–and we’re not just talking about the $23 million injury guarantee in Jones’s contract–played in this decision regarding the team's short- and long-term financial health.

Let’s look at the numbers.

$23 Million Injury Guarantee

The elephant in the room has always been Jones's $23 million injury guarantee in his contract. Jones would have guaranteed $23 million of his $30 million base salary if he couldn’t pass a physical by the fifth day of the 2025 league year for those needing a refresher. 

Separately, $12 million of Jones’s $30 million base salary for 2025 became fully guaranteed if he was on the roster on March 15. If he could not pass a physical, the guaranteed money would jump from $12 million to $23 million.

The Giants, likely to cut Jones, are projected to have $42.307 million in cap space in 2025, but that number remains fluid. By moving on from Jones, the Giants could potentially recoup $19.35 million in savings, putting themselves in a much better financial situation, which we’ll get to in a moment.

Drew Lock’s Contract and the Effect on the Giants Salary Cap

The Giants signed Lock to a one-year, $5 million guaranteed contract with up to $3 million in playing and performance incentives.

Had Lock been named the starter, there would have been little chance of him earning the full $3 million in incentives at this point in the season. But with seven games to go, there was a good chance of him picking up at least a third of those incentives, which would not have been good news for a cash-strapped Giants team. 

Per Over the Cap, the Giants currently have $2.865 million in remaining cap space, which, barring anything catastrophic, should be enough to get them through the rest of the season. 

While the natural assumption is that if the team needs more cap space, it can always restructure some deals–outside linebacker Brian Burns’s contract might have been a place to look–the later the season gets, the less likely a general manager is going to want to be restructuring deals for the simple reason that they’re going to want to give themselves optimal cap space as early in a league year as possible in exchange for pushing money out into the future.

DeVito is in the final year of his contract and counts for just $915,000 against the cap this year. He has proven that he can win games for the Giants in this system, and he’s more athletic than Lock, where he can probably run the offense better as it was designed. 

That factor and the finances swayed the team’s decision toward DeVito.

New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones
Oct 13, 2024; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; New York Giants quarterback Daniel Jones (8) reacts during the third quarter against the Cincinnati Bengals at MetLife Stadium. / Brad Penner-Imagn Images

The Future

Finances aside, there is another reason why going to DeVito makes more sense. The Giants will use these remaining seven games to determine if the Cedar Grove, New Jersey native, who will be an exclusive rights free agent (ERFA) after this season, can be a legitimate No. 2  next year. 

If they feel that to be the case, the Giants can tender him at a reasonable rate, giving them a cost-effective No. 2 option. They can then take the savings they’d otherwise have to spend on a veteran backup and use that for another position on the team or to be more competitive in the free-agent market for a veteran starting quarterback if they believe the draft doesn’t offer them attractive enough options.

Final Thoughts

One never wants to see a player flop at his job, so to sit here and say this is a glorious day for the New York Giants and their fans would be flat-out incentive and unfair to Jones, who has done everything asked of him, who has worked his tail off to be the best he can be, and who has been a fantastic representative of the franchise for six seasons.

Where he was drafted is not his fault, nor was it his doing that the Giants never set the table properly for him to succeed in his first five seasons. It seems unfair to give up on him after this year as well, but unfortunately, all those built-in excuses that existed before this year are gone, combined with how the finances fell, which led the Giants to this decision.

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Patricia Traina
PATRICIA TRAINA

Patricia Traina has covered the New York Giants for 30+ seasons, and her work has appeared in multiple media outlets, including The Athletic, Forbes, Bleacher Report, and the Sports Illustrated media group. As a credentialed New York Giants press corps member, Patricia has also covered five Super Bowls (three featuring the Giants), the annual NFL draft, and the NFL Scouting Combine. She is the author of The Big 50: The Men and Moments that Made the New York Giants. In addition to her work with New York Giants On SI, Patricia hosts the Locked On Giants podcast. Patricia is also a member of the Pro Football Writers of America and the Football Writers Association of America.

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