New York Giants Confident In Victor Cruz Returning To Form
The New York Giants have expressed confidence that wide receiver Victor Cruz will return to form this season despite not playing in a regular season game in almost two years.
The focus of the offseason for the New York Giants has been on their revamped defense. General manager Jerry Reese focused a lot of his efforts during free agency on improving that side of the ball, so it makes sense that they have received a bulk of the attention thus far.
Offensively, the Giants haven’t made much changes, as they will have a majority of the same players in the starting lineup. Eli Manning is still running the attack as the starting quarterback, and he has some new weapons at his disposal.
But, the one weapon that everyone will be focusing on will be the return of his former No.1 receiver, Victor Cruz. Cruz has been someone that the Giants and their fans have patiently been waiting to return to the field, but have been disappointed in numerous occasions whenever he seemed to close to coming back.
Cruz tore his patellar tendon in Week 6 of the 2014 season against the Philadelphia Eagles. He missed the remainder of that season, but was hopeful that he would return in time for 2015. He gave the team and their fans a couple of teases in the spring of 2015 when he was on the practice field, but would suffer a setback when he injured his calf.
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The calf injury then became the topic of conversation, as Cruz battled that throughout the offseason. It turned out the calf injury was worse than anticipated, as it forced Cruz to miss the entire 2015 season.
Here we are now, 21 months after the original injury that sidelined Cruz once again facing some optimism about his return. Cruz was able to participate more during the spring than anyone would have guessed, which provides confidence in his return during training camp heading into the preseason and hopefully regular season as well.
According to Ralph Vacchiano of the New York Daily News, the Giants are hopeful that Cruz can return to his old form that he showed prior to his knee injury. That is asking a lot for a player that will be almost two years removed from game action and 30 years old.
The added age alone would normally be enough to rob someone of their athletic ability, but throw in the injuries and there is little doubt that Cruz has lost a little bit of his explosion and athleticism. But, the Giants will take their time with Cruz and hope he returns healthy, and are right to hope that he can return.
There is nothing wrong with being optimistic, as adding Cruz to Odell Beckham Jr. and rookie Sterling Shepard would give the Giants an outstanding trio for Manning to pepper with targets. At least the Giants have a backup plan in place this time, as they drafted Shepard and Dwayne Harris is ready to contribute once again offensively and improve on his numbers from last season.
Anything that Cruz provides to the Giants this season should be considered a bonus, as relying on him in any capacity would not be a smart move for the Giants. Instead, they should proceed with the assumption that Cruz will not be providing anything this season so that they are not let down like they were in 2015.
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The Giants can be confident that Cruz will return to form, but until he shows it on the field an in actual game action it is fair to remain skeptical that Cruz will be able to provide numbers anywhere close to what he did prior to his injury.