PHILADELPHIA — Victor Cruz leaped high for the ball, for a giant upset only the proud New York Football Giants could have dreamed was possible, a dream upset over Michael Vick’s so-called Dream Team. It was a prayer really, a Tyree-esque prayer thrown by Eli Manning into double coverage, and Cruz answered it, and answered the call from his coaches and teammates to help as he had never helped in his young NFL life.
Victor Cruz simply wanted that ball more than the great Nnamdi Asomugha wanted it, more than Jarrad Page wanted it. Which meant Victor Cruz, the free agent afterthought with the forever chip on his shoulder out of Paterson Catholic High, stands today as the symbol of a team that believed in itself against all odds when no one else did.
“It’s as big a regular-season win as we’ve had in a long time,” Giants co-owner John Mara said after Giants 29, Eagles 16. “Not too many people gave us a chance today to come down here and beat this team.”
A nattily dressed Cruz, wearing headphones and carrying a snack inside a white Styrofoam box, paused on his way to the Big Blue bus and said: “The Giants are always thought of to be a hard-nosed, gritty team that can overcome anything and stuff like that, so I feel like I symbolize that Giant tradition a little bit, and it feels good,”
Victor Cruz makes $325,000, and Asomugha makes $12 million, and it was Cruz who was money anyway, from start to finish. He had stunned the Eagles and the Linc with a 74-yard catch-and-run in the first quarter that had given the Giants a 14-0 lead, before LeSean McCoy ran through and around gasping, grasping Giants to take a 16-14 lead in a chippy affair that would leave Vick with a broken right hand compliments of what he charged was a Chris Canty late hit, before Andy Reid foolishly and brazenly asked McCoy to convert fourth-and-1 from the Big Blue 43 early in the fourth quarter. Michael Boley spilled McCoy for a 3-yard loss, and soon Manning had it at the Eagle 28 with 8:15 remaining.
And called Z-Sail. One problem: double coverage. No problem.
“I knew it was gonna be a jump ball, I knew both the defenders were gonna be there, and I just jumped up and tried to make the best play I can, and came away with the ball,” Cruz said.
Touchdown.
“He was really aggressive to the ball, and that’s how he played today,” Asomugha said. “It was what we saw on film from him, that type of player.”
“Great job by Victor just going up there with the attitude of either, ‘I’m gonna catch it or nobody,’ ” Manning said.
Or no touchdown.
Cruz had lost possession of the ball on his way down, and the replay official challenged the ruling. Cruz checked the overhead scoreboard. All the Giants did.
“Anytime those refs go to that booth, you never know what the outcome may be, especially on a touchdown call,” Cruz said. “I was sweatin’ a little bit, but once they confirmed it, I was cool.”
The announcement from referee Jeff Triplette: “The receiver caught the ball, stuck it over the goal-line plane before he lost possession.”
When the Eagles got the ball back, Mike Kafka was their quarterback, and Aaron Ross intercepted a bomb for DeSean Jackson, and before long, the Eagles were dead.
The kid’s first NFL touchdown had come when he bounced took a short pass, bounced off Kurt Coleman and was off to the races down the left sidelines.
He had been shut out in the opener against the Redskins.
“It was just great to kinda get all those negative comments off my back, and that big monkey I had on my back,” Cruz said.
He started dancing, so his father Mike, who committed suicide four years ago, could watch.
“Every game before the game starts, I go in the end zone and kinda give him a prayer and ask him to guide me throughout the game and stuff like that,” Cruz said. “He’s always on my mind and I’m glad he could see me from up above.”
Cruz was left to care for his mother and two sisters.
“You kinda have to grow up quick and kinda turn into the man that they need you to be,” Cruz said.
And yesterday, Victor Cruz turned into the receiver Manning and the Giants needed him to be. Dream day against the so-called Dream Team.
steve.serby@nypost.com