Victor Cruz’s much-heralded return will not take place this year. And there is some doubt that it ever will at all.
The Giants wide receiver announced on Monday morning that he will require season-ending surgery on his left calf. He made the announcement in a video through the website Uninterrupted.
“This hurts, mainly because I worked so hard to come back from the patellar tendon surgery,” Cruz said in the video. “I felt like I was back to 100 percent and then the calf happens. It’s a tough thing to go through. Tough thing emotionally, physically.”
Cruz did seem prepared to overcome that torn patellar tendon that he suffered in a game against the Eagles last October. He was a participant in early training camp practices and looked sharp. But on Aug. 17 he suffered a calf injury that sidelined him for the remainder of the preseason and beyond.
He tried to return to practice from the calf injury on Sept. 30 but could not make it through early drills. He has undergone two platelet-rich plasma injections since then. The Giants were hoping that Cruz might come back for the stretch run, but when he did some route-running on Saturday with trainers he reinjured the muscle.
“It’s a tough time for me, tough time for my family, tough time for all of us, because we were so excited about coming back and being a part of something special this year and being a special player individually,” Cruz said. “Unfortunately I couldn’t do that this year because of my calf injury.”
There is no timetable for the surgery or the recovery. Even if he does make it back, Cruz will have missed almost two full seasons of action, which is hard for anyone to overcome.
“Who knows?” general manager Jerry Reese said on Monday. “When you are gone for a few years like that you can’t just jump back in and play, I don’t think. You have to build your way back up . . . I don’t think it’s an easy road back. We’ll see where that goes.”
Cruz, 29, has three years remaining on his contract with the Giants and is due to earn a base salary of $7.9 million in 2016 and $15.8 combined in 2017 and 2018. The Giants will most likely renegotiate that contract for a lower base salary or cut him and allow him to sign elsewhere as a free agent. The team would save $6.1 million against the salary cap if they cut him this upcoming offseason. Reese said Cruz’s contract going forward will “take care of itself.”
Reese said that when Cruz suffered the Sept. 30 setback the team discussed putting him on injured reserve with a designation to return, which would have freed up a roster spot. Instead the medical staff told Reese that Cruz would likely not miss more than eight weeks and the team should wait it out. Reese, who called the calf injury “more bizarre” and this “the year of the calf” after safety Nat Berhe also required surgery on his, said in hindsight the team should have put Cruz on IR earlier.
“It’s unfortunate,” Eli Manning said. “He worked so hard to come back from the knee injury last year. To have this nagging calf injury, I know it’s been tough on him.”
Cruz said he will “retool” his brain and his body to deal with overcoming this injury. He said he is excited for the challenge. He said he has become “addicted” to the process of returning at 100 percent and wants to “really attack this thing and really come out the other end firing.”
“I hope you guys don’t lose faith in me,” he said at the end of the video, “because I haven’t lost faith in myself.”
