It can be taken away from you so cruelly in a Big Apple minute. It can happen with fireworks on July 4. Ask Jason Pierre-Paul. It can happen with one more concussion. Ask Al Toon, or Wayne Chrebet. It can happen with a collision that leaves you paralyzed. Ask Mike Utley. It can happen with a body growing old and betraying you. Ask Peyton Manning.
It can happen with a devastating knee injury that leads to a relentless calf injury that becomes a partial tear that leads to surgery — and a worst-case, doomsday scenario of an unthinkable end to a dream career no one could possibly have imagined.
Will Victor Cruz, 29 years young, ever salsa again in the end zone for the Giants?
Cruz never made it back from that fateful October 2014 night in Philadelphia when he was carted off in tears with that torn right patellar tendon. And of course everyone assumed he would, because everything about his rags-to-riches story from nobody free agent out of UMass to marquee Madison Avenue Pro Bowl star screamed Hollywood from the start. Or Ballers.
Then came his emotional, tearful, heartfelt video announcement Monday morning that he would undergo season-ending surgery on his left calf.
The Cruz Blues were everywhere you turned Monday inside the Quest Diagnostics Training Center and in the hearts of Big Blue Nation.
This is the Jersey Kid from Paterson who danced his way into Giants fans’ hearts.
Who ignited the Giants’ Super Bowl XLVI run with that 99-yard catch-and-run that simultaneously buried Rex Ryan’s Jets.
Who got to pay tribute to his grandmother with a salsa in the Super Bowl.
Who became a bon vivant man about town and the toast of the town.
Who so looked forward to playing Robin to Odell Beckham Jr.’s Batman.
And now?
“Who knows?” GM Jerry Reese said.
Cruz will have been gone almost two years if all goes well and he makes a full recovery.
He has no guaranteed money left on the five-year, $43 million deal he signed before the 2014 season. Yes, he has set himself up nicely for life after football. But no one around the Giants wants to ponder life without Victor Cruz.
And no one would — or should — start writing his Giants obituary.
Because you never count Victor Cruz out.
“I don’t see why he wouldn’t be able to come back,” Eli Manning said. “I don’t know what the surgery is, I don’t know all the circumstances there, but I think that would be the mindset and the goal to have a full recovery and come back and play football again. I think he’s tough enough and resilient enough to get it done.”
JPP was asked what advice he would give Cruz.
“It takes time,” JPP said. “You can’t listen to what people say. You got to do what you can. Everybody’s gonna have their say-so and their opinion, but you got to have the faith and belief that you can do it, you know?”
Giants quarterbacks coach Mike Sullivan was formerly wide receivers coach.
“One thing I’ll say about that kid — if anyone has the work ethic, the heart, the toughness, the wherewithal to overcome it, I’m betting on him,” Sullivan said. “I’m hoping and praying for the best.”
Sullivan remembers vividly the day Cruz introduced the salsa to the NFL. The idea was born inside the Quest Diagnostics Training Center assembly room, after Cruz had dropped the first pass thrown to him against the Redskins, and was about to replace Domenik Hixon in Philadelphia. Sullivan and the receivers casually joked about Cruz doing a salsa, given that it was Spanish Heritage Month. Sullivan’s mother is Mexican.
“I remember it was pregame during the stretch,” Sullivan said, “and I remember just going up to him and there was some Spanish and there were some curse words which I don’t want to repeat, but the gist of it was: ‘Hey, you’re gonna score, you’re gonna get in that end zone, and you’re gonna show these … fans … the salsa.’ And he kinda looked at me a little funny like, ‘Is this guy serious?’ or whatever.”
Sullivan, the quarterbacks coach at the time, was upstairs in the booth. Cruz got on the phone after his 74-yard catch and run TD and asked excitedly: “Coach, I did it, did you see?”
Current receivers coach Sean Ryan commiserated Saturday with Cruz.
“He’ll attack it,” Ryan said. “His mindset was positive, and was pretty much, ‘Whatever they throw at me, I’m gonna take on and get this thing right.’”
Once again, Victor Cruz finds himself a long shot.
“When you’re gone for a couple of years like that, you just can’t jump back in and play, I don’t think,” Reese said. “I think you have to build your way back up and get your feet under you and get your confidence back and have the quarterback get his confidence back and get that chemistry back. I don’t think it’s an easy road back, but I know how hard he works and how hard he worked in getting back from the patellar injury.”
Cruz tweeted: “Thank you to the real fans that understand how difficult this is and have faith in me and wish me a full recovery. Still #BigBlue4ever #TheReturn still lives.”
If he climbs this mountain, he’ll undoubtedly have to restructure his contract.
“That will take care of itself when the time comes,” Reese said.
Fingers crossed everywhere that the time comes.