PHILADELPHIA — There have been better Christmas Days than this for Tommy DeVito, howls and jeers of derision that have rained down on Phil Simms and Eli Manning and Daniel Jones, and now him.
They like “Rocky” stories here, just not when Rocky shows up playing quarterback for the New York Football Giants.
Tommy Cutlets?
Bah humbug.
That wasn’t Bergen Catholic on the other side of the line of scrimmage Monday looking to whack him back to Cedar Grove, N.J.
Or, on this day, to the bench.
This is the place where fairytales go to die for Giants quarterbacks and Brian Daboll decided after one half of misery that the Eagles were intent on serving Fried Cutlets as their Christmas feast and called on Tyrod Taylor to replace Tommy DeVito.
Alas, no Christmas Miracle.
It was Eagles 33, Giants 25 when Taylor had it at his 25 with 1:10 and no timeouts.
He hit Darren Waller for 11 yards and spiked the ball at the Philly 49 with 37 seconds left.
Now it was fourth-and-8 with 26 seconds left.
Crowd standing and roaring.
Taylor hit Waller for 21 yards. Then spiked it with three seconds on the clock. He threw into the end zone and was intercepted by Kelee Ringo.
Eagles 33, Giants 25.
Taylor gave the Giants the better chance to win and no one would begrudge Daboll for giving him the ball next time even if he will be a free agent at the end of the season.
It is one thing to have Aaron Judge recognize you and pick up your dinner tab, quite another for Tommy DeVito to be asked to end a 10-game losing streak in your first game at the Linc.
It is no fault of DeVito’s that the Giants since 2013 have become the Eagles’ homecoming game, and with the Cowboys losing on Christmas Eve, the Eagles weren’t about to pass on the chance to seize the NFC East lead in a get-right game against their one-time rivals.
The Giants had hoped that an ascending Daniel Jones and the additions of Waller and speed on both sides of the ball would close the gap on the Eagles and Cowboys.
The gap had remained as wide as the gap between Michael Strahan’s front teeth.
And so Tommy Cutlets versus the Eagles and the Linc was not a fair fight.
Daboll found himself desperate for a spark and the switch from DeVito to Taylor gave him one.
Adoree’ Jackson’s 76-yard pick-six and the two-point conversion made it Eagles 20, Giants 18.
Angry Eagles fans suddenly were chanting “Run The Ball, Run The Ball” when they weren’t booing.
Just when the Eagles appeared at their most vulnerable, Jalen Hurts found A.J. Brown for 32 yards on third-and-20 and soon it was Eagles 27, Giants 18 with 11:07 remaining.
Taylor’s 69-yard touchdown rainbow to Darius Slayton with 5:22 left made it Eagles 30, Giants 25.
DeVito didn’t appear rattled, but he wasn’t winning any chess match with Eagles defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, and it was Eagles 20, Giants 3 at the half, and he had thrown for 55 yards, with no completion longer than 14 yards.
He wasn’t playing with the swag that had lit a fire under his teammates during his magical run.
DeVito was intent on getting the ball out of his hand quickly at all costs. The good news: he was sacked just once. The bad news: he completed four passes to his wide receivers for 25 total yards.
It was Eagles 17, Giants 3 in the second quarter and DeVito had gone three-and-out on three of his four possessions and it would have been four of his first five if Jalen Carter hadn’t been flagged for offsides on fourth down.
That’s when Barkley got 10 yards on fourth-and-1 at the Giants’ 46 and got the next four carries before Haason Reddick knifed in untouched to drop him for a 4-yard loss on fourth-and-1 at the Philly 21.
Taylor was gifted his first possession at the Philly 14 following a Boston Scott fumbled kickoff return and Barkley’s 7-yard touchdown made it Eagles 20, Giants 10.
DeVito, of course, was not part of the 38-7 playoff beatdown at the Linc last January.
“That’s something that a lot of people in this locker room were here for and that they remember,” Isaiah Hodgins had said this past week.
Tommy Cutlets won’t soon forget this one.
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