Much to the shock of plenty of folks, the New York Giants announced that they have decided to bench quarterback Daniel Jones in favor of Tommy DeVito. DeVito has logged just six starts in his NFL career, and he’s slated to make his season debut with the Giants when the squad faces off against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Nov. 24.
Giants defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, who is in his sixth season in the NFL and with New York, said recently that he and his teammates trust the coaches who made the decision to sit Jones in lieu of the inexperienced DeVito.
“Because you don’t know their full thoughts behind it,” Lawrence said. “I think we trust the coaches and where they’re going and where they think we can go. That’s what you have to do. You have to be naïve and trust the process. You think about the wrong s— and then you start playing like s—.”
But that doesn’t mean Lawrence agrees with the Giants’ decision. In his eyes, Jones stands out as the team’s top signal-caller.
“He’s the QB1. To me, the best quarterback on the team,” Lawrence said. “But they see things differently. I guess that’s all that matters.”
Lawrence also expressed sympathy for Jones in light of the Giants’ decision to bench him. He and Jones go back a ways, considering they are the two longest-tenured players on the Giants at the moment. Both players were selected by New York in the opening round of the 2019 NFL draft.
“It’s tough for that [benching] to happen,” Lawrence said. “I can’t control it. They made the decision based off their evaluations, and thoughts and feelings. You’ve got to respect it as a player even though you don’t like it. As a player, you have to keep playing. As a human and as a brother, I feel for him.”
Finally, the 27-year-old revealed how Jones has stomached seeing his role with the team diminish.
“He’s strong. He gets the business side of it,” Lawrence said. “I guess they talked about it. He obviously doesn’t like the choice that was made. But he has to live with it, and I think he’ll grow through it.”
While DeVito is lacking NFL experience, he showed promise across nine appearances with the Giants a season ago. With DeVito as the team’s starting quarterback, New York had a solid 3-3 record, and he was a major part of the Giants’ three-game winning streak late in the campaign.
He finished the 2023 regular season with eight passing touchdowns compared to three interceptions, meaning he took relatively good care of the ball when his name was called. Additionally, he totaled 1,101 passing yards and 46 first downs passing while completing an impressive 64.0 percent of his passes.
Fans of the Giants should have a better grasp on whether the team made the right move by benching Jones and starting DeVito when they see how the latter fares in his first start of the season. Maybe DeVito will step up to the plate and have a big game against Tampa Bay after he’d been glued to the bench all season.
