"Is Victor Cruz the NFL's second-coming of Jerry Rice?"

Victor Cruz has been a major explosion for the New York Giants offense! Mario Manningham(49ers), who was Eli Manning's favorite target, and the hero in last year's Super Bowl, was not re-signed this year mainly because of the emergence of one Victor Cruz.

I am a well-known and dedicated "hater" of all New York sports teams, but I give credit where credit is due.

Let's look at the comparisons...

Both played at smaller schools.

Victor Cruz attended the University of Massachusetts, only catching 149 passes for just under 2,000 yards and not many touchdowns. Jerry Rice attended Mississippi Valley State University in the 80's, and broke a boat-load of NCAA records.

Other than Rice's 3 Super Bowl rings to Cruz's 1, the only visible difference I see is that Rice dominated at the collegiate level to where Cruz, who was an All-Conference player in the CAA(Colonial Athletic Association), wasn't anything special... or so we thought.

Both are about 6'1 and 200 pounds, which is considered to be a little under-sized for NFL wide receiver standards. Jerry Rice's ability to find open spots in defensive secondaries was overly impressive, and Victor Cruz shows similar attributes.

Cruz, like Rice, possesses a rare speed in pads enabling him to blow by defenders as if he is an
Olympic track star, making for huge gains and exciting scores!

Rice rarely ever dropped balls thrown his way, and I haven't seen Cruz let many balls get thru his hands either.

I know it's very early in Cruz's thus far explosive career, but he looks like a 5+ year veteran that will be making the Pro Bowl a scheduled vacation every year, which Rice made it to 13 times in his career.

Rice was drafted #16 overall by the San Francisco 49ers in 1984-85(49ers traded with New England to get the 16th pick...ARGH!!), and Cruz wasn't drafted at all.

In Rice's first couple seasons he started 19 games, for a total of 135 catches, 2,497 yards, and 18 touchdowns with a long of 86 yards... Cruz, thru 14 starts so far in his first two seasons, has 132 catches for 1,254 yards, and 16 touchdowns with a long of 99 yards, and he still has more games to play for he is only half-way thru his second season.

Rice played for 20 seasons and is considered to be the best receiver to ever play in the NFL. Cruz is just in his second season, and has had no major injuries, so we'll see how long he gets to play in the NFL.

Though Rice was noticed in college due to his record-breaking NCAA career and Cruz wasn't noticed until the Giants invited him to try out, they seem to be dangerously alike in not just size and speed, but skill-sets and work ethic as well.

Good luck to Victor Cruz in his future, except when you go against my Patriots of course, and I will enjoy regularly viewing your highlights of big play after big play that you make, much like Jerry Rice when I was younger.

I see a smaller and very fast #80 at wide receiver in the NFL again, and doing great things every week.

I'll be cheering for the awesome UMASS boy in the future....

SALSA!!