Victor Cruz Officially Announced His Retirement From The NFL This Morning

Hand up, I’ll admit I thought Victor Cruz retired last year after he was cut by a Bears team that had negative healthy/good receivers and any news I read about him was about his dating life on TMZ or hosting The Challenge on MTV. But if he still appears in the free agent pool for fantasy leagues, it means he is still an active player until he puts a retirement message on Instagram or The Players’ Tribune. Luckily for those of us that don’t feel like reading a small novel about an athlete’s life and career, Vic chose to go with a video to announce his retirement and already has that retirement mindset with a tie dye shirt. Shout out to him living the dream.

If you don’t know the story about Victor Cruz going from an undrafted free agent to a Pro Bowler, you probably didn’t watch any TV from 2011-2013. Cruz’s story is one of the greatest stories in sports and that’s before you bring up that he battled all the way back to the field after suffering what is can be a career killing injury in Philadelphia or that he missed almost the entire season after his coming out party vs. the Jets in the preseason which also captured Rex Ryan wondering who the fuck that missile from UMass was.

Cruz went from an unknown to a legitimate star and Super Bowl champion before pretty much being wiped off the map after that injury in Philly like so many of the receivers that Eli put numbers up with. From Plaxico shooting himself, to Hakeem Nicks faltering to the injury bug, to The Other Steve Smith’s knee never getting healthy, to Cruz never truly bouncing back from his torn patella tendon. But during his underratedly short time in New York, Cruz gave us a bunch of incredible highlights, with my top 3 being:

3. The Super Bowl touchdown (Grainy video, fuck Goodell):

Cruz scoring this touchdown gave Giants fans some confidence and much-needed relief during the torture chamber that is rooting for your team in the Super Bowl.

2. 99 Yard TD vs. the Jets

This one play changed the course of 2 teams. It catapulted the Giants into the playoffs and allowed that Super Bowl championship to be a possibility while also turning the Jets back into the Jets.

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1. The Salsa

All things considered, this is what turned Victor Cruz into a household name. Nothing got the blood moving for overweight NFL fans than partaking in their weekly marathon session of sitting on the couch watching football and then screaming after the Giants scored a touchdown and salsa’ing to celebrate as well as getting a little bit of cardio. I never had so much fun burning 2 calories, mostly because Cruz’s touchdowns were the only times “exercised”.

Best of luck with the next step Victor and hopefully you perform wildly past ESPN’s standards and end up at a much better network.