There is no signage or plaque marking the significance of the site but Victor Cruz knows where and when it happened. Lincoln Financial Field is the home of the Eagles but it was where Cruz was born, in an NFL sense.
He returns to his professional football birthplace for Sunday night’s showdown — it’s always a showdown when the Giants and Eagles clash — as a budding star, merely one year after entering the Linc as a kid from Paterson, N.J., lucky to be wearing an NFL uniform.
“When I look at that game obviously, last year week three, it was obviously one of the best memories to date, and it was a great game,’’ Cruz told The Post. “I did a personal best, and to come out like that was definitely great. But it’s a new year and I just want to remain constant.’’
If Cruz maintains a level of consistency, he will take his place among the greatest receivers the Giants have ever had — as long as the team is smart enough to sign him to a new contract. All eyes were on him after his breathtaking 2011 season, filled with personal and team success beyond his wildest dreams. Could he do it again? After three games, Cruz is tied for fourth in the league in receptions with 23 and, proving his worth to Eli Manning, is tied for second with eight third-down receptions.
Locating exactly where Cruz sowed the seeds to become a salsa-dancing sensation could lead back to the University of Massachusetts or the training camp fields of Albany, but the ground was truly planted on Sept. 25, 2011, at the intersection of Pattison Ave. and 11th Street in Philadelphia. So uncertain were the Giants that Cruz could handle the slot role that a week earlier they dusted Brandon Stokley out of mothballs and signed the veteran receiver. Stokley actually played against the Eagles, catching one pass for 7 yards. A few days later, he hurt his leg in practice and was waived with an injury settlement.
The career turn for Cruz was quite different. His third career NFL reception was a 74-yard catch-and-run for a first-quarter touchdown, making big-ticket free agent cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha look silly and slow. In the fourth quarter, Cruz leaped near the goal line with Asomugha and only one of them came away with the ball. It was Cruz, who got it for a game-sealing 28-yard touchdown reception.
“It’s a new year, it’s a new season, a new perspective,’’ Cruz said. “I’m not creeping up on anybody.’’
Cruz figures to have his running mate, Hakeem Nicks, back with him for this game and the Eagles are sure to have Cruz in their sights, unlike a year ago, when they saw what he did while not really knowing who he was.
Big Blue duo can feel Packers’ pain
Anyone (other than head-in-the-sand NFL officials) watching the fiasco at the end of the Packers-Seahawks game knows the replacement officials finally determined a wrong outcome by awarding Seattle a game-winning touchdown on a Hail Mary pass that all evidence seems to indicate was intercepted by Green Bay cornerback M.D. Jennings.
“I think they made the wrong call,’’ Giants safety Antrel Rolle said yesterday on WFAN.
How would Rolle have handled the situation if he was Jennings?
“Honestly, I would be very, very upset,’’ Rolle said. “I definitely wouldn’t be a happy camper. It would probably stick with me for a while. Probably have me second-guessing myself: Was there something I could have done differently, did I not do enough? But at the end of the day, [Jennings] did do enough to make it clear that it was an interception.”
Victor Cruz said if he were in the same position as Seahawks receiver Golden Tate, and had been awarded the touchdown by the replacement officials, Cruz said he would not have taken credit.
“Probably not. … I would have been honest,” Cruz said on ESPN radio. “Obviously, the film shows, the video shows that I obviously didn’t catch the football. I wouldn’t have owned up to catching it, if I didn’t catch it.”
Osi and LeSean keep up word war
Osi Umenyiora and Eagles running back LeSean McCoy either really detest each other or else they are setting the groundwork for a post-football career as a comedy duo. These two premier players have a brief but bizarre history of lobbing verbal grenades at each other — with the most recent salvo fired by McCoy.
“Yeah this is for real, like I don’t like Osi!’’ McCoy said on ESPN’s E:60. “Every time on the field I would say stuff to him like ‘You is a bum, you are the third best defensive lineman on the defense,’ which I didn’t lie. Wait, I did lie, he’s the fourth now, so I actually did lie.’’
It was McCoy who started all this with a Twitter war of words last year when he weighed in on Umenyiora’s contract complaints by calling him only the third-best Giants defensive end. That prompted Umenyiora to refer to McCoy as “She’’ and, most memorably, sending out a tweet wishing him a Happy Mother’s Day.
Umenyiora held his tongue after this latest noise from McCoy, saying, “Well my response to that is LeSean McCoy is one of the greatest running backs in the league.’’
Asked about the Mother’s Day tweet from last May, McCoy said: “Osi, I mean he really is a good player. I think he thinks he’s better than what he really is. I think he’s a ballerina in a Giants uniform, but other than that that’s all I gotta say about Osi.”
That was not all Osi had to say about McCoy.
“Well he’s probably right. I might be a ballerina in a Giants uniform,’’ Umenyiora said. “I’m lucky I got the contract, I’m lucky to be playing 10 years in the league, to have won two Super Bowls, all that is pure luck.’’
On ESPN radio yesterday, Umenyiora said, “I know he’s gonna be looking to provoke me’’ in the upcoming game.