Mama’s joy
V ICTOR Cruz caught only one pass for 4 yards. He was too busy chipping off the rust from nearly two years away from the game he fell in love with as an 8-year-old boy, and it hardly mattered.
Victor Cruz played a football game Saturday night, played the first half for the New York Football Giants, 21-20 Snoopy Bowl victors over the Jets, and survived.
“Everything’s great ... unscathed if you will,” Cruz said, smiling his million-dollar smile.
That’s how you defined Victory on this night for Victor Cruz.
“It felt great, man, just to be with my teammates and put this 80 jersey back on and to get the love of the crowd and the people again,” Cruz said.
No one was loving it more than Mom.
“He’s always been a fighter,” Blanca Cruz told The Post before watching her son finally make his comeback Saturday night against the Jets. It was a comeback many doubted could happen. But they don’t know Victor Cruz. Mother knows best.
“He doesn’t have a weak mind,” Blanca said. “He’s been doubted before and always came back. He’s had a lot of adversity in his life. If he falls he says, ‘I’m gonna get myself back up and keep moving.’ ”
Once more with feeling, Victor Cruz got himself back up and kept moving toward Sept. 11 and the Cowboys.
Asked what he sought to get out of his 29-snap return, Cruz said: “Just to come out here healthy and be in the position to make some plays and catch the football and just come out and feel healthy and feel good about myself.”
At precisely 7:46 p.m., Cruz trotted onto the MetLife Stadium field again to the old sweet song of “CRUUUUUZ!”
“It kinda gave me goose bumps ... to have the fans do that. I mean, it was just humbling,” Cruz said. “And it really showed how much I mean to the fan base here in this tri-state area and to all Giants fans across the world, how much they’ve anticipated this moment and how much I’ve anticipated this moment to be back in front of them. It was a pretty surreal moment for me to say the least.”
He lined up wide right versus Darrelle Revis on the first play of the first series. He spent most of the rest of his night lined up in the slot against Buster Skrine.
It was on the third series when Eli Manning went looking for his long-lost friend.
Cruz tried a double move on Skrine, a hard, sharp cut — “I definitely had a step on the DB,” Cruz said — but Manning was under siege, and the ball faded inside. Cruz found himself having to turn his body as he looked skyward for the ball, and Marcus Gilchrist had it read anyway and swatted it away.
“Obviously you’re trying to get your feet up under you again and things like that,” Cruz said. “But on that one move where Eli just missed me, I felt like I was shaking some of the rust off a little bit, so it was definitely a good feeling.”
The pro-Jets crowd, sprinkled liberally with blue 13, 10, 90 and, yes, 80 jerseys, let out an “Ooooooooh.”
The first series of the second half: a catch in the right flat, and here came “CRUUUUUZ!” again.
“That ball felt like it was forever in the air ’til it got to my hands,” Cruz said and smiled. “But it was good to kinda catch that ball and get a little contact, get a little hit out of bounds, and hopefully I can build on that, but it was definitely good to get one in.” Ben McAdoo called it a big step. “He looked comfortable out there, looked confident,” he said.
Cruz’s world was turned upside down on that fateful Oct. 12, 2014, night at the Linc, when he shattered his patellar tendon. The boy Blanca raised as a single parent in the drug- and gang-infested Fourth Ward of Paterson, N.J., was clutching his right knee, writhing in pain, sobbing on a cart.
“I was just devastated,” Blanca said. “I started praying: ‘Oh, my God, let it not be something serious.’ ” It was something serious. “Of course I saw him crying,” Blanca said. “He was so emotional. I don’t think I slept the whole night.” He didn’t suffer alone. “Just watching him go through the surgery and just sitting around with his treatment and with his leg up,” Blanca said. “Watching the games on TV. I know it was really difficult for him.”
It got worse before it got better, but it got better finally Saturday night.
“I told him, ‘Never give up on anything you believe in,’ ” Blanca said. “‘You go full force and never look back.’ ”
Only back to the future now, whatever that future might be.