ON A TUESDAY night in late November, hundreds of people gathered outside Primo Hoagies in Wayne, New Jersey, in 30-degree weather.
The line stretched past a handful of local storefronts — a jewelry store, a bank, a clothing boutique — all the way around the side of the strip mall, approximately a quarter of a mile to the back of the building.
The crowd was made up of New York Giants fans waiting to meet undrafted rookie quarterback Tommy DeVito, who had just made his third start for the Giants after spending most of the season on the practice squad.
“I had to come. I saw it on Instagram,” Giants fan Phil Capiello said. “I went and bought a couple helmets. Couldn’t miss this. We already have a couple jerseys coming too.
“The [New] Jersey element to it, it’s like one of my cousins is playing or something.”
That evening DeVito fielded requests that ranged from signing helmets to posing for pictures with his now-signature Italian hand gesture celebration with the pinched fingers in the air to signing shoes, body parts, homemade No. 15 shirts, “Godfather”-style posters featuring his face and high school yearbooks from his Don Bosco Prep days.
It was a scene comparable in recent years only to what happened after former Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. made his famous one-handed, finger-tipped catch in 2014 that vaulted him into