Wide receiver Victor Cruz said this week that the Giants needed to target him more to get their comatose offense going and he provided some strong evidence for his contention in the second quarter of Sunday’s game against the Cardinals.
Cruz caught a 27-yard pass from Eli Manning on third-and-11 to record his first catch of the day late in the quarter and then followed it up with a seven-yarder on the next play to move the team into the red zone for the first time all day. Cruz added a third catch to set the Giants up for a touchdown pass to Rueben Randle that sent them into halftime in a manageable 10-7 hole.
Until that point, it was another rough one for the Giants offense. Manning threw his 30th interception since the start of last season in the first quarter and had a lost fumble overturned by one of a number of questionable illegal contact calls that have hurt both teams. They’ll need more of what they got on the 13-play, 90-yard scoring drive in the second half, which was the best of anything we’ve seen from the unit in the preseason or regular season.
The Cardinals scored 10 points on their first two possessions, but Drew Stanton hasn’t been able to keep them moving since then. He’s been sacked twice and the Giants have done a good job of forcing Arizona into going for smaller plays after giving up a series of big plays early in the contest.