But Cruz’s bothersome left calf is starting to seem just a little bit bigger than that.
Advertisement
Randle had seen Cruz make a remarkable comeback from his nightmare last October in Philadelphia.
The Giants have also dealt with injuries to rookie second round pick Landon Collins, the only sure thing playing time wise in this secondary, and Cooper Taylor. “I have not been told that”, Coughlin said when asked if Cruz would practice this week. That’s still the goal, that’s still the plan, in my opinion. Obviously the training staff will advise if they see differently as the next week and a half comes along. “So I still think I’m right there”. He said he was embarrassed by the injury, but noted that he was not doing something he should not have been doing when he was hurt.
“I think I’ll be ready to go”, Cruz says.
“I hear nothing but good things from the guys that I was still talking to during preseason. And he was really looking forward to getting out there Week 1”. The bad news is that Cruz has not seen any game action and that could mean a lot of rust when he first gets on the field for a game. There has been a noticeable drop off in his play since the injury which is likely why the Texans released him.
Almost two weeks after he first suffered the calf injury, Cruz still hasn’t even been jogging. This time the injury was to his foot. “I’ve just been working out, lower body, one leg, or whatever the case may be, upper body”. As for the release, it just wasn’t playing into the strengths that I have as a safety”, he said. “So there was no point in being around there.
Still, Cruz admitted to reporters on Monday that not only has he not been cleared for practice, he has not yet been allowed to do so much as jog. Obviously, if you can’t run you can’t play. “I know how Coach Coughlin … if you don’t practice, you don’t play, so I want to be out here for practice come Week 1”. “Calves are tricky. Once they feel healed and once they feel OK, you can go out here and mess it up again, so you want to make sure that it’s fully healed and fully recovered once you step back out there on the field”.
Advertisement
That’s the last thing Cruz wants, especially since he believes he’ll be just fine once he’s back on the field. “I look at it and (say) “Robert Ayers hurt in pre-game warmups”, to me, I know how I view things, and if it happened to someone else I would question their toughness”.
