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Jordan Raanan, ESPN Staff Writer
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — New York Giants quarterback Tommy DeVito admitted some stuff “slipped through the cracks” and recently hired a new marketing team to make sure it won’t happen again moving forward.
DeVito hired Maxx Lepselter and Maxx MGMT to handle his marketing several weeks back. He did not fire agent Sean Stellato, who became an internet sensation several weeks back with his outfit for “Monday Night Football.”
“Not the case. Sean is my contract agent. That’s what he is,” DeVito said. “And I have a marketing team now to handle all the other stuff.”
This was all in the works before a local pizzeria, Coniglio’s Old Fashioned in Morristown, claimed in an Instagram post that DeVito’s agent raised the appearance fee from $10,000 to $20,000 after a come-from-behind win last Monday against the Green Bay Packers. Lepselter and Stellato were sitting with DeVito’s family during that victory.
But DeVito ironed it out by showing up to Coniglio’s on Tuesday.
“Obviously a million things going on, still is,” he said. “Some stuff just slipped through the cracks. Soon as I got word, via my telephone, I’m sure some of you did on ESPN, and I was, ‘What is this?’
“Made some calls to my team and Tom [Coniglio] and got it sorted out and wanted to get over there. Found out Monday, said I’d maybe go over there the next day. Went there Tuesday. Over there [we had] face-to-face conversation, talked to him and then I did hire a new marketing team to handle all that — just to handle all that, just so everything can be smoothed over and nothing like that happens again.”
This is only a concern because of the DeVito craze. The undrafted rookie, a local legend who grew up in New Jersey and famously lives at home, won three of his first four starts prior to Sunday’s loss in New Orleans. He’s quickly gained fame in the area because of the way he’s played (seven touchdown passes to one interception in five starts), along with his local roots and Italian heritage.
It still all starts with the football.
“I don’t handle any talks until everything is finalized with the contract in front of my face and then I sign it,” DeVito said. “That’s the only time I like to know about what things are going on because that is their job to figure out and do all that because I am here doing this. And my family knows that, my agent knows that, my marketing team, everybody knows that. That is part of the reason I live at home as well, so they can handle all that and I don’t have to worry about anything but being here in the building.”
Even though DeVito has been under the spotlight for years as the starting quarterback at New Jersey powerhouse Don Bosco Prep, in college (at Syracuse and Illinois) and now with the Giants, this type of attention is next level. He knows he needs to be extra careful.
Wanting to make up for the misunderstanding was important to DeVito.
“It obviously got blown out of proportion,” said veteran offensive lineman Justin Pugh. “But even with that, Tommy did the right thing, went down there, met the family, shook their hands.”
DeVito seems to understand this is the price of fame. “Everything you do is under a microscope, times 100, even more now,” DeVito said. “Anything that happens is going to be in some kind of article, somewhere, like how this happened. I’m sure if this happened a month ago it probably would not have happened as it did. But it did. So, got cleaned up. Continue to be yourself, though.”
That means concentrate on playing football. DeVito and the Giants (5-9) play against the Eagles (10-4) on Christmas Day in Philadelphia. That comes with enough challenges.
DeVito said he expects a “hostile environment.” He’s looking forward to it.
Why?
“It’s fun,” he said. “It’s part of the game. I like a hostile crowd.”
Surely there will be plenty of holiday greetings from the city of Philadelphia. He’ll have a message in return.
“I’ll say Merry Christmas right back,” DeVito said. “That’s that.”