For Giants and Jets, what does future hold for Tommy DeVito and Zach Wilson?

If ever there was a day that succinctly defined what this season has been like for New York football fans, this past Wednesday was it. The starting quarterbacks for the Giants and the Jets were named their conference’s offensive player of the week that morning, as if the shield of the NFL itself was shining its stars in our direction and telling us: Here. I know it’s been tough. Enjoy this.

That the quarterback of each team would receive the Week 14 honor concurrently probably wouldn’t have sounded very outlandish in August or even early September. The names of the quarterbacks, however, would have shocked and horrified fans of both squads when the summer air was still sweet with the flowers of optimism and Aaron Rodgers and Daniel Jones seemed to be the answers to all of the sports problems in the Big Apple.

Zach Wilson?

Tommy DeVito?

These aren’t the quarterbacks we necessarily wanted. But they’re the ones we got.

It took one weekend in early September for New York football to crumble. The Giants’ opening drive resulted in a blocked field goal returned for a touchdown and an injury to Andrew Thomas, their most important offensive lineman, in a 40-0 loss to the Cowboys.

The Jets, embracing the one-upsmanship that generally prevails between the two stadium-sharing franchises, outdid them the next night when Rodgers lasted four snaps.

You already know how we got here, to the point that the single-digit playoff percentages of each team with a 5-8 record now rest on these shoulders. The Giants and their third-string passer who began the season as an undrafted rookie and practice-squadder, and the Jets’ ne’er-do-well second overall selection in the 2021 draft who is running out of cat lives.

So instead of rehashing all of that, let’s look ahead to the next four weeks, the final ones of the regular season, a stretch that begins Sunday when the Giants are at the Saints and the Jets at the Dolphins. Where might this go for each of the teams and, more importantly, each of the players?

Both teams openly envision turning the position back to the original starter for the 2024 season. The Giants said so out loud earlier this month when general manager Joe Schoen noted that the “expectation” is for Jones to resume his role (assuming he is back from his ACL tear by then); the Jets have implied so simply by the financial structure of the contract they renegotiated with Rodgers this past summer (although the mercurial Rodgers may very well decide he’s had enough and walk away).

DeVito certainly has proved that he can play well in the NFL, something that was not apparent to the Giants even when he made his debut for them in the game against the Jets and, on a rainy, windy afternoon at MetLife Stadium, was asked to throw only seven passes — four in the second half and overtime — out of the 50 snaps he played.

“The more experience you get, the more things you see,” Giants coach Brian Daboll said this past week of DeVito’s improvements since then. “This is a difficult league. Difficult assignments each week. Different game plans you get. Coaches are going to game-plan you different each week. He’s done a good job of just trying to execute his job. He has the right mindset, knows he’s got things to work on, like we all do, but comes to work every day.”

DeVito has shown that at the worst, he can be a valuable and reliable backup, whether that winds up being with the Giants or somewhere else, and that there is always the potential that he will continue to grow and become a solid starter in the league.

Wilson, meanwhile, is a bit trickier to project.

He is coming off what coach Robert Saleh called the “best game of his career.”

It probably was not enough to erase the many other dreadful games on his resume and salvage his tenure with the Jets, but it at least showed, for one afternoon, that his production is capable of matching his potential.

“He felt what it is supposed to feel like when you are converting third downs and getting more [opportunities],” quarterbacks coach Rob Calabrese said. “Going out there and playing well on Sunday does a lot for a young quarterback, and Zach, I still see him as a young quarterback. He’s seen what it feels like and he’s seen what success does throughout the game.”

Where Wilson winds up next season is tricky, given the $11 million in guaranteed salary on the final year of his rookie deal, but it would seem unconscionable for the Jets to go into 2024 with Wilson as the only viable backup behind Rodgers the way they did this year.

Besides, if Wilson shows in these next four games that he can be a consistently strong player, why would he want to return next season and potentially sit out the redshirt season he was supposed to have behind Rodgers this year?

It says a lot about each of the quarterbacks that they downplayed their player of the week laurels.

DeVito shrugged it off (“It’s cool, I guess” was his response to it) and Wilson saw it as recognition of the entire offense rather than himself.

Those awards could be the pinnacles of each of their careers. Or maybe each has more trophies and honors to win. They’re still young and developing (DeVito, 25, actually is a full year older than Wilson, 24) and the NFL is almost always in need of quarterback talent.

The real answer to their futures lies in this simple fact: No one knows.

Unless there is a pigskin psychic out there who in August foresaw that DeVito and Wilson would be here now, winning player of the week awards on the same December day for the Giants and the Jets, respectively — and there isn’t — no one knows anything.

We’re all just guessing, hoping, watching and conjecturing.

To be honest, it’s what makes all of this so much fun.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

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.