The Sports Xchange

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Wide receiver Victor Cruz has certainly come a long way in the last 10 months.

Reduced to an emotional heap on the Lincoln Financial Field after suffering a season-ending knee injury against the Eagles, there were some who thought Cruz’s ruptured patellar injury was the end for this fairy-tale receiver.

Not Cruz, whoever, who once the shock of the injury wore off vowed to rise again. He’s been doing just that as the Giants go through their annual summer training camp. Cruz passed the opening physical and has been running routes against the defense. What’s more, he has yet to miss a practice, nor does he intend to if he can help it.

“It’s feeling good. Like I said before, things are getting better,” he said of his healing knee. “Nothing negative is happening with the knee. Everything is still going in the right direction. I’m actually getting more and more comfortable with it as the days go by, so I’m feeling good.”

A healthy Cruz could go a long way in terms of complementing an offense that already has Odell Beckham Jr. as part of its firepower. If Cruz can come close to resembling even an iota of his pre-injury self, his presence should help discourage opposing defenses from zeroing in on Beckham.

“We can definitely play together,” Cruz said. “I think that this offense matches both of our strengths very well, as far as him stretching the field and his route-running abilities and my ability to route run between the hashes and make the small play into a big one, which he can do as well. We’re excited to get all our balls in one corner and get this thing rolling.”

Cruz however might have to wait just a few more weeks before he, Beckham, Rueben Randle and the other receivers get things rolling. The Giants’ medical staff is unlikely to allow Cruz to participate in many if any preseason games, as they hope to have him ready to go for Week 1 against Dallas.

“I know I’m not going to do anything against Cincinnati, throughout practices or anything like that. I’ll just do the stuff that we do individually on our end,” Cruz said. “They don’t want me to get over-competitive and go out there and do something crazy. As much as I assured them that I won’t, they still won’t allow me.”

Still, Cruz admitted that he would like to get a few preseason snaps in just to get his feet wet.

“I would love some kind of tune-up work, and kind of going out there and feeling what game speed feels like again and get hit real speed again so it won’t be so much of a surprise come Week 1, but like I said, I’ll leave it up to the coaching staff and the training staff,” he said.

In some ways, though, that’s a blessing for Cruz, who confessed that he is still trying to get comfortable with some routes.

“I think it’s just me trusting it. Just me continuing to trust it as I get more repetition of doing it, more confidence builds in my knee; more cutting, using the knee to cut inside and cut outside,” he said.

“Just the repetition that I need to continue to do to build the confidence in it, but the more I do it, the more confidence it builds and it’s feeling pretty good. I just want to continue those repetitions.”

Cruz, who said he probably will not wear a protective brace on his knee when he does return to games, concluded by saying that when he puts on the film of himself from these practices, he likes what he’s seeing.

“I see a guy that resembles the guy that was playing last year, still has that same pop, still has that same ability, still has that lateral quickness off the line, and during some of these one-on-ones, I’ve seen some of that quickness,” he said.

“It’s just a matter of building on that and there’s always a lot to work on. There’s always a lot to get better at, but I’m happy that the quickness is pretty much still there and I can still get up field pretty quickly.”