Victor Cruz says Miami trip wasn’t a good idea in retrospect
Victor Cruz offered a mea culpa in response to a trip to Miami he and some of the New York Giants’ wide receivers took before the team’s loss to the Green Bay Packers in the final game of Wild Card Weekend.
Cruz, Odell Beckham Jr., Roger Lewis, and Sterling Shepard boarded a private jet to Miami after the Giants defeated the Washington Redskins in the regular season finale. The following morning, pictures of the players shirtless aboard a yacht owned by singer Trey Songz surfaced.
Six days later, the Giants were on the receiving end of a 38-13 beatdown in their first postseason game since winning Super Bowl XLVI.
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Hindsight is 20/20. Cruz admitted the trip wasn’t a good idea in a podcast with SportsNet New York.
“Looking back on it, it definitely wasn’t worth it,” Cruz said. “At the end of the day, you want to put your mind in a place where you want to succeed in whatever the next task is, especially in a football setting and a football atmosphere to just win a game. Granted it’s New Year’s Day and parts of you just wants to like…you’re an adult and you pay your own bills and it’s an off day, so you just want to enjoy yourself. I think the fact the photo made it…a picture is worth a thousand words.”
The players denied the trip had anything to do with the team’s performance in the Wild Card Game. At the same time, it provided an unneccesary distraction for a team without a plethora of playoff experience making its first postseason appearance in five years.
Beckham dropped what should have been a touchdown in the first quarter. He punched a hole in the wall at Lambeau Field after the game. Shepard also struggled mightily. Quarterback Eli Manning tried to diffuse the situation leading up to the game by making light of the Miami trip. After the game, he conceded that Beckham and Shepard put too much pressure on themselves in their first playoff game.
Head coach Ben McAdoo stressed the wide receivers didn’t break any rules by going to Miami. The Monday after the regular season finale was an off day. All were present and accounted for when practice resumed on Tuesday.
The trip created a frenzy the New York media pounced on with a vengeance.
Although the trip and the playoff loss have nothing to do with each other, Cruz and his teammates forgot some simple facts of life when playing in the nation’s largest market.
“You just have to understand the market you’re in and where you’re playing,” Cruz said. “Those are all things that are going to put under a microscope and nitpicked until it’s over and until you win. And when you win, OK, all is well again.”
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