TOMMY GETS ANOTHER TURN

DeVito will start for Giants vs. Packers over healthy veteran Tyrod, who says decision ‘hurts’

The last thing Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll can afford, with discord and tension throughout the Giants’ coaching staff, is to risk the confidence of players inside their locker room.

But that’s what they did Tuesday by announcing Tommy DeVito as the starting quarterback against the Green Bay Packers and demoting a healthy Tyrod Taylor on the depth chart.

Players have DeVito’s back, of course. Plenty of them see the rationale of riding the hot hand into what they hope will be a third straight win.

“I trust any decision the coaches make,” defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence said. “They see something in DeVito right now, and I’m gonna rock with it. He’s won two games for us, and that’s big.”

But this is also viewed in some corners as disrespectful to Taylor, a 13-year veteran who commands a ton of respect on this team and seemingly was blindsided by the news when Daboll told him Monday.

“It’s tough. It’s disappointing. But it’s also out of my control,” a diplomatic Taylor said Tuesday. “It hurts, but it’s the nature of the business.”

This isn’t just a curious decision because it sends the better quarterback to the bench. It’s also a dangerous call because it shows players that practicing and playing well, and setting a strong example on and off the field — as Taylor has — won’t necessarily be rewarded here.

Taylor, 34, played the good soldier after the Giants’ Oct. 15 loss in Buffalo, taking the full blame for an ill-advised, goal line run call before halftime – even though the coaches never should have given him that option in the first place.

He worked hard to recover from breaking “four” ribs in an Oct. 29 loss to the Jets. He kept the nature of his injury a secret until Tuesday. And he continued traveling with the team and stayed engaged even while on injured reserve.

“In the absence of me not being out there to play, I chose to travel to Vegas, chose to go to Washington, obviously here and Dallas, too, just to support those guys, try to help them in any way,” Taylor said. “I think they respect that and they appreciate that, so there’s support [for me].”

Most importantly, though, Taylor clearly grinded his way back believing that his job would be here for him when he got healthy — only to find the starter’s chair pulled out from under him.

And this is only the latest karmic disappointment for Taylor, who once lost his Chargers starting job when a team doctor accidentally punctured his lung while administering a pain-killing injection.

Was Taylor surprised when Daboll told him? “No comment,” Taylor said.

Taylor said “no comment” twice during Tuesday’s media scrum and later said he believes those were the first no comments of his career.

In October he broke four of his ribs, two of which were displaced fractures, which created some early “risk” for his “internal organs.” But he pushed through the “pain” for 10 days and rehabbed back. Now he’s backing up DeVito.

Did he have a conversation with Daboll about what it would take for him to win the job back from DeVito?

“No ma’am,” Taylor said.

Is that a conversation he wanted to have? “No comment,” he replied.

The facts are these: the Giants have played three games with Taylor as the starter and three with DeVito, 25, as the starter. The offense has averaged 17 points per game with DeVito and 11 with Taylor.

However, DeVito has been sacked on 18.79% of his dropbacks (28 times out of 149) compared to Taylor’s 8.8% (10 times out of 113). DeVito has four turnovers to Taylor’s zero.

And the Giants’ last two wins with DeVito