Victor Cruz said Odell Beckham Jr. deserves another crack at it with the Giants, putting public support behind a comeback that asks Beckham Jr. to fight his way back into the picture rather than walk back into it. Cruz said the chance to come back home is rare, and he said Beckham Jr. has the courage to go after it.
That is why Beckham Jr. is drawing attention now. He is trying to earn another opportunity with the Giants, and the timing gives the conversation weight because the effort is not about a farewell tour or a ceremonial return. It is about whether he can still make a case for himself in a crowded room and finish what he started in 2014.
Cruz knows the feeling from the inside. Before Beckham Jr. became famous, Cruz had already been a Super Bowl champion and an undrafted free agent out of UMass, and Beckham Jr. later looked at him as the big brother in the Big Blue sky. That history gives his support a little extra force, because it comes from someone who built his own name the hard way and knows what it takes to stay in a league that rarely hands out second chances.
But Cruz did not dress up the challenge. He said Beckham Jr. would have to humble himself to being the guy lower on the depth chart and then fight, scratch and claw to make his presence felt. That is the friction point in this comeback push: the name is still loud, but the path is not guaranteed, and a familiar face does not move anyone up the depth chart by itself.
Cruz was cheering Beckham Jr. on from Los Angeles on Friday night against the Jets, a small detail that still says a lot about where this stands. Beckham Jr. has support, history and a case for one more shot, but the next step belongs to the Giants and to the roster math that will decide whether the homecoming becomes real.
