The NFL needs my Tommy DeVito Rule

Embrace regionality. Embrace Patrick from Southie. Embrace Florida Man.

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I had a take on last week’s episode of The Sports Gossip Show that I feel the need to expand on in written form (new episode out now, by the way! Please subscribe on YouTube! Also available wherever you get your podcasts! lol).

And that take is this:

Every NFL team’s third string quarterback should be required to come from that state.

This league bylaw would (of course) be called the Tommy DeVito Rule, because Tommy DeVito is the only reason I thought of it. I’m sort of obsessed with what Tommy DeVito represents, which is, of course, The Hometown Hero.

If you don’t know who Tommy DeVito is, here is a video I made last year that thoroughly explains his whole deal. If you don’t want to watch it, I completely understand, so I will tell you the short version here.

Tommy DeVito is the Giants’ third-string quarterback. Well, he used to be. He may be the starter at this point, because the Giants benched and released the quarterback they drafted 3rd overall in 2018, Daniel Jones. The job now falls either to their original backup QB, Drew Locke, or to our boy Tommy. We do not know who will start the game this week.

But that doesn’t matter. Tommy isn’t special because of football. Tommy is special because he is from New Jersey.

Tommy grew up in Cedar Grove, a town in New Jersey that’s five miles away from MetLife Stadium. His family is loudly and proudly Italian-American — we’re talking “could have been cast in The Sopranos,” which I mean as the highest possible compliment. Tommy went to Don Bosco Prep, a school whose name is already so New Jersey that I can’t even make a joke about it.

Tommy still lives with his family. He said: