Former Giants Receiver Victor Cruz Weighs in on State of Giants

Cruz, who stars in a new Frito-Lay and PepsiCo commercial with former teammate Eli Manning and other NFL legends, also offers an opinion on a good offensive system for the Giants given their current personnel.

The New York Giants might be starting from scratch from a leadership perspective, but as far as having some key cornerstone pieces in place on the roster, former Pro Bowl receiver and Super Bowl XLVI champion Victor Cruz thinks the Giants roster isn’t as much in dire straits as it might appear.

“I don't think they're far, to be honest. I think if you look at the roster, they have a talented team,” Cruz told Giants Country as part of a promotional event for Frito-Lay's and PepsiCo's new advertising campaign, "Road to Super Bowl LVI" which also features former teammate Eli Manning, and NFL legends Peyton Manning, Jerome Bettis and Terry Bradshaw.

“Obviously, injuries played a huge part in the season...but when you look at the team, you see the pieces they have, you see the defense, how well they have played all year long, just fighting and scratching and clawing and keeping us in these, in some of these games throughout the year. But you see that they're close. Like they have pieces there, they have pieces that can take them to the next level.”

The problem, according to Cruz, is that the Giants didn’t do a good enough job with ensuring they had a deep enough roster in the event of emergencies. As such, when players started getting injured, all the carefully laid plans for various personnel packages ended up having to be adjusted on the fly.

As a result, Cruz doesn’t think that the Giants could get as thorough of a look at Daniel Jones as they may have wanted, especially given how Jones has yet to have a solid offensive line in front of him in three seasons.

“I don't know if you got to see a true sample size from him and what he can do with the clean pocket. I don't think you've seen enough of those opportunities for him to make plays. So with that being said, I think they'll bring him back next year to finally get a real look.

“That offensive line is huge, and they need to build that chemistry for Daniel Jones to be the player that we want him to be. … This next year will be it, in my opinion; it's a make or break.”

New York Giants 2021 Season Rewind: Where They Went Wrong on Offense / Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

The Giants spent a lot of money to fix their offense, but the results were worse than in 2020. A recap of what went wrong.

---

New York Giants Roster Rebuild Plan: Offensive Line :: Danielle Parhizkaran/NorthJersey.com

Break out the sledgehammers, the power drills and whatever other tools you choose, because this unit is in dire need of a rebuild from top to bottom.

---

New York Giants Off-season Plan: Quarterbacks / Stephen Lew-USA TODAY Sports

In this first of several parts, we're looking at the biggest questions at each position group, starting with the quarterbacks.

---

New York Giants Roster Rebuild Plan: Running Backs / Stephen Lew-USA TODAY Sports

The Giants haven't gotten optimal production out of their running backs group. But is that on the backs themselves, or something else?

---

New York Giants Roster Rebuild Plan: Tight Ends :: Kareem Elgazzar/The Enquirer via Imagn Content Services, LLC

The Giants offense supposedly is tight end friendly. So why then has the unit only been deployed in 16.3 percent of the passing game snaps through 13 games of the season?

---

New York Giants Roster Rebuild Plan: Wide Receivers / Kevin R. Wexler-NorthJersey.com via Imagn Content Services, LLC

The Giants had a strong group of receivers on paper, but they all shared one unfortunate thing in common that undermined their productivity.

---

Giants John Mara Explains Why Team Had to Move On from Head Coach Joe Judge / Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

Despite watching the team slide down the tubes in the final six weeks of the season, Giants co-owner John Mara believes Joe Judge can still become a very good NFL head coach.

---

For the Giants, Pressing the Reset Button Was Easy; Now Comes the Hard Part / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The reset button has been pushed and the housecleaning has begun at the top. now the pressure is on ownership to finally get it right.

---

Cruz said he’d love to see the next Giants offensive coordinator incorporate elements from the Chiefs’ system.

“I think if we can take some, some bits and pieces of that offense—and we have a guy like, you know like Tyreek Hill in Kadarius Toney that can work the middle of the field, that is quick and fast and can make some things happen--I would love to see a Kansas City Chiefs style offense come to the Giants.”

Check out the full interview with Victor Cruz in the video at the top of the page.

---

Join the Giants Country Community

• Sign up for our FREE digest newsletter
• Follow and like us on Facebook
• Submit your questions for our mailbag
• Listen and subscribe to the daily LockedOn Giants podcast.
• Subscribe and like the new LockedOn Giants YouTube Channel
• Sign up for our FREE message board forums