Giants receiver Victor Cruz has been a restricted free agent for less than three days, which means it’s too soon to say whether the Giants will work out a long-term contract with him, whether he’ll ultimately play on the one-year tender offer, or whether some other team will sign him away and give the Giants a first-round draft pick as compensation.
Giants owner John Mara says he’s hoping for option A, but right now everything is on the table. When a receiver like Wes Welker can be had on the open market for $6 million a year, that might suggest that it won’t be too pricey for the Giants to keep Cruz, but Mara isn’t sure right now if that’s the case or not.
“It’s hard to say,” Mara told the Star-Ledger. “Some receivers, though, have gotten some pretty big contracts. Mike Wallace got a big contract. So I don’t know. I have no idea how this is all going to play out, I just know that we want him back.”
Mara said he isn’t aware of any other team attempting to sign Cruz away, although he knows that’s a possibility.
“Not that I know of. Nothing to report,” Mara said. “But that doesn’t mean conversations aren’t going on.”
Cruz recently hired agent Tom Condon, who also represents Giants quarterback Eli Manning, and Mara said he sees that as a positive.
“Certainly we’ve done business with Tom Condon before,” Mara said. “I think the fact that he has our quarterback is maybe a good thing, but we’ll see. We’ll see. He’ll go out and try to get the best deal he can for Victor, and hopefully it will be with us.”
All the Giants know for sure is that they’ll either have Cruz on their team in 2013, or they’ll have an additional first-round draft pick.