When last we saw Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz, he was returning to the team’s Week Eight game against the Eagles following x-rays to rule out a serious injury to his neck or shoulder after a hard spill.
Cruz’s return to the game would seem to signal that no one involved with the team was too worried about Cruz being on the football field. Something between that game, whcih preceded the Giants’ bye week, and Wednesday’s practice changed, however, and the Giants decided to keep Cruz off the field as the team got going with their preparation for the Week 10 date with the Raiders.
“I wouldn’t call it a setback but when a guy’s not practicing, obviously, it’s an issue,” Coughlin said, via the Newark Star-Ledger. “They’re just going to hold him to make sure he doesn’t have any further incidents today. He feels better, quite frankly. He probably could practice if we needed him to practice today, but we’re going to err on the side of caution here in hopes that he will be prepared to go tomorrow.”
Cruz has been the rare member of the Giants offense who has been able to avoid questions about why his performance has falled off dramatically from past seasons, It doesn’t sound like there’s much chance that they’ll have to play without him, but it would obviously be another hurdle for the offense to overcome if things wound up breaking that way.