Once Giants backup QBs, Tommy DeVito and Drew Lock are now Super Bowl 2026 opponents
Former Giants backup quarterbacks Tommy DeVito, left, of the Patriots and Drew Lock of the Seahawks. Credit: AP/Greg M. Cooper, Maddy Grassy
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Tommy DeVito and Drew Lock didn’t have to get along. They were competitors, after all, fighting over the crumbs of leftover snaps in training camp as Giants backup quarterbacks in the summer of 2024 and then, when Daniel Jones was benched and ultimately released, vying for the starting gig.
Even now, a season removed from that disheartening period of time, they find themselves at odds, this time with nothing less than a Super Bowl on the line.
But on the bus ride to the Opening Night festivities on Monday, there was DeVito, now the third-string quarterback for the Patriots, in a FaceTime conversation with Lock, the backup for the Seahawks, while he was riding on his team’s bus to the same event. They were chatting it up not as rivals but like the friends they became during their one season together.
“Me and Drew had a really special relationship,” DeVito said. “We got really close really fast, and to this day, we talk multiple times a week. It’s been fun.”
Now think about the day Jones left the Giants’ building in November 2024 and the two of them were left unsure what their roles would be moving forward. Imagine telling them then that in about 15 months, both would be in uniform at the Super Bowl.
“I’d have said slim to no chance,” Lock said of that scenario.
“I would have said you are crazy,” DeVito said.
Yet here they are, two of a handful of Giants and Jets outcasts who have come together to bring a bit of the boroughs to this matchup. Unlike Sam Darnold and Leonard Williams and Julian Love, the chances are slim that Lock and DeVito will have anything to do with the outcome on Sunday. That doesn’t matter to them, though.
So how were they able to remain pals and not let the inherent competitive nature of their professions ruin that?
Lock said the advice came from DeVito’s father, who had told his son early on that other players can act that way but that their position is special.
“Tommy will quote his dad on this: Quarterbacks can’t have beef with each other,” Lock said. “It’s not our decision who plays. Whatever happens happens. But we have to be boys, we have to be tight. There is only one of us out there and we have to have each other's backs.
"That started very, very early for that room, especially me and Tommy being the backups together. You get a little more time with each other than the starter out there. It’s a great relationship, a great friendship that will carry on forever.”
DeVito said that wasn’t diminished as they went “back and forth” as starters through the forgettable end of that 2024 season. Instead, it was fortified.
“Thank God we had that friendship and relationship to help each other throughout those situations,” DeVito said. “It’s really special.”
DeVito had another relationship like that this past summer while still with the Giants in training camp. This time he and rookie Jaxson Dart hit it off right away. When the season was about to start, the Giants waived DeVito and he was claimed by the Patriots, but he said he will always treasure his time as a Giant and still maintains close touch with Dart.
“He played with that chip on his shoulder like I knew he was going to,” DeVito said of Dart’s first NFL season, which had him a finalist for Offensive Rookie of the Year this week. “He is a tough, competitive dude. Like everybody else in that organization, I was trying to help him out and keep him out of you know where [the blue medical tent] and on the field as much as possible.”
That included the game in which the Giants faced the Patriots, a contest “highlighted” by Patriots linebacker Christian Elliss de-cleating Dart in front of the Giants’ bench as he tried to squeeze a few extra yards out of a scramble.
“I gave him a heads-up before the game to get out of bounds when he was on the sideline,” DeVito said, laughing. “He chose to do what he chose to do.”
Overall, though, Dart impressed DeVito.
“I think he had a very solid year,” he said. “He knows there is room for improvement from Year 1 to Year 2 and I am looking forward to seeing what he does.”
DeVito, of course, is now a teammate of quarterback Drake Maye, who made that jump and took his team to the Super Bowl. Could Dart do the same for the Giants?
“I’m not going to say he will bring them there,” DeVito said, “but I will say he gives them a chance in any game that they play in. That’s the most important thing when you play quarterback.”
DeVito and Lock, meanwhile, were looking forward to running into each other in person on Monday night, but that never happened. The Patriots left the convention center before the Seahawks took the stage. Lock said they’ll try to figure out a way to make it work for a quick hello, though. Perhaps it will have to wait until Sunday.
“We have group chats with [former Giants quarterback coach] Shea Tierney, all the guys who were in that room, [fellow backup] Tim Boyle,” DeVito said of the crew that made it through that weird, disappointing 2024 season together. “We just talk.”
Lock has given DeVito advice on switching teams, which he’s done several times and DeVito experienced for the first time. Lock also gives DeVito a hard time about his “backup quarterback” insurance commercials on TV.
“It’s disappointing,” Lock fake-pouted about not having his own ad and not getting help from his buddy to get one. “Hopefully they give me a call. We’ll see. I don’t know what else I can do for it.”
Maybe a Super Bowl ring will help. One of them will have one after Sunday.
When it comes to that game, they are taking the same approach they did when they were all showing up to work wondering where they would be on the ever-fluctuating Giants depth chart on any given day.
Said DeVito: “Listen, let the best man win.”
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
