Giants’ Victor Cruz will return to practice, injured Eli Apple likely to sit
Victor Cruz of the New York Giants looks on from the sideline during the second half against the Miami Dolphins in an NFL preseason game at MetLife Stadium on August 12, 2016 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The Dolphins defeated the Giants 27-10. Credit: Getty Images / Rich Schultz
Victor Cruz will participate in individual drills at Giants practice Sunday, his first activity since injuring his groin this past week. If all goes well during that early portion of the workout, Ben McAdoo said, Cruz might return to team drills as well.
Not all of the Giants’ injury news is as good, though, at least not yet. First-round pick Eli Apple, who left Friday’s game with what the Giants called a lower left leg strain, underwent an MRI Saturday to further evaluate his condition. He is unlikely to practice Sunday.
Apple said after the game that he was “feeling fine” and it is “just a tweak,” adding: “It was just throbbing, kind of like just the outside of my knee. But it’s fine now. Just have to put some ice on it and have some good maintenance on it.”
Second-round pick Sterling Shepard also left the game with an injury — a sore groin — but will go through individual drills to see if he is able to continue in Sunday’s practice. WR Geremy Davis (groin) and FB Will Johnson (neck) will not practice Sunday, McAdoo said.
Ball control
The Giants were minus-3 in turnovers Friday night, which McAdoo pointed out is not a formula for winning games. In fact, he said, teams that were minus-3 last season won only two of the 48 games they played. “As much time and energy as we spend on the football and taking care of ‘The Duke’ [the football] in practice, for us to be that careless with the ball is very disappointing,” he said. “It will be fixed and it will be addressed.”
Thompson’s play pleases
McAdoo was pleased with rookie safety Darian Thompson’s first game action. “He had a good start,” he said. “He was 100 percent in his assignments, or close to it, and he communicated well. He had a nice night from a defensive perspective. Obviously as a young player, he has some things to clean up from a technique perspective, but his assignments were clean. . . McAdoo said the Dolphins’ touchdown pass near the end of the first half was a fluke play and that there was not much the Giants could have done to prevent it. Matt Moore threw a pass over the head of intended receiver A.J. Cruz, on whom the defensive backs converged, and it was tipped and caught behind the coverage by Matt Hazel for a 51-yard score. “Chalk that one up to the football gods,” McAdoo said. “That was a heck of a happening there is what that was.”
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
