Giants edge rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux, departure we are still shock…
across from Saquon Barkley, stares at a chess board and mulls his next move.
It usually doesn’t take long. It’s a bit of a mismatch going against the star running back. Thibodeaux has been playing a while and he seemingly is a move ahead of Barkley, who is a relative novice at the game.
It’s been that way on the field for Thibodeaux, too. The No. 5 pick in the 2022 draft has gotten even better after an excellent rookie season.
Through 13 games, Thibodeaux has career highs of 12 tackles for loss, 11 1/2 sacks and three forced fumbles — including one in each of the last two games.
Giants, Tommy DeVito announced his resignation immediately after facing…
At Natoli’s Italian Deli in Secaucus, N.J., in the shadow of MetLife Stadium, one can now order the Tommy DeVito hero — chicken parm a la vodka — just like the breakout Giants quarterback likes it.
In the past month, Mr. DeVito, raised across the Hackensack River in Cedar Grove, has rocketed from third-string obscurity to star on the often-dismal New York Giants, keeping their long-shot playoff chances alive and becoming an icon of the greater Meadowlands metro area.
Mr. DeVito, 25, grew up loving the Giants and his mother’s chicken sandwiches and watching his father, a plumber, fix boilers. Now he is known as “Tommy Cutlets,” a nickname he scribbled on fans’ white tank tops during an event at Primo Hoagies in nearby Wayne. He posed for selfies pursing his fingers Italian-style in his signature touchdown celebration.
A hometown N.F.L. hero might seem like an anomaly in an era of free agents, multimillion-dollar contracts and teams without local roots. But when Mr. DeVito materialized in the Meadowlands, he drove home the truth that a “New York” team has actually played in one state over for nearly half a century. That state is now staking an ownership claim.
Tommy Cutlets has become the toast — or maybe the bruschetta — of the towns that lie in the shadow of MetLife Stadium.
