JPP likely out for Cowboys

THE GIANTS’ triumph of getting both Victor Cruz and Jason PierrePaul back from career-threatening injuries fell far into this season’s rear-view on Tuesday, replaced by the increasingly challenging and ominous realities of not just Cruz and Pierre-Paul but this entire 2016 team.

Cruz, who had caught the game-winning touchdown Week 1 in Dallas in his first game since Oct. 12, 2014, on Tuesday sat in coach Ben McAdoo’s office and lobbied for more playing time after seeing just 26 snaps and no targets in last Sunday’s loss in Pittsburgh.

Pierre-Paul, who had been playing like the old JPP with 5.5 sacks in Weeks 11 and 12, then limped through the locker room with a groin injury that seemingly will sideline him for Sunday night’s showdown with the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium.

“Biggest game of the year,” rookie corner Eli Apple said. “They keep getting bigger.”

Pierre-Paul’s absence threatens to derail the NFL’s most-improved defense, while Cruz’s meeting with McAdoo demonstrates how serious of a crisis the rookie head coach faces with his frustrated offense.

McAdoo was so aware of the need to address Cruz’s publicly-voiced postgame frustration that he approached his wide receiver Tuesday right when he entered Quest Diagnostics Training Center.

“He came up to me,” Cruz said of McAdoo. “I came into the building, we were getting ready for our first meeting, and he came up to me and was like, ‘You’re gonna come see me, right?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m coming to see you.’ And then shortly after I came and saw him, we spoke, and then that was it. He was recep-