The Giants gave Victor Cruz a pretty sizable pay cut, though with a chance to earn most of it back if he’s healthy and performing.
But it sounds like they could have carved deeper into it, as he admitted he didn’t want to go any place else.
“I couldn’t go anywhere else. I’m such a Jersey dude, born and raised here,” Cruz said on SNY’s Alexa Datt’s podcast, via NJ.com. “Being in New York, especially missing those, pretty much, last two years of football, I was anxious to come back. And I didn’t want to come back anywhere else but New York. I was just excited to have that opportunity, and thank the entire Giants organization for allowing me to have that opportunity.”
That opportunity meant taking a $7.9 million salary down to $1.3 million, with the rest tied to playing time and performance incentives. But since he’s missed the last 26 games with knee and calf injuries, he understood it was inevitable.
“I knew it was coming,” Cruz said. “It wasn’t like I was in the dark, and it was a surprise. I knew I hadn’t played in two years. Making X amount of money, I knew there was going to be something done there. I’m realistic about the situation I was placed in.”
Cruz also said he was “pretty much right on schedule” in his rehab, and began running again last week. He’s going to work on increasing his speed and cutting, and we’ll see when the offseason program begins in mid-April how ready he is.
