Victor Cruz: Giants love Jets hogging the spotlight this summer

Former New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz insists that Big Blue loves that the New York Jets attracted the bulk of the attention and headlines between the two clubs this summer. 

"This is exactly where we like to be," Cruz said about the Giants while speaking with Steve Politi of NJ Advance Media for NJ.com. "I think we have a team that’s deep in a lot of areas, and the fact that the Jets are getting a lot of that coverage now just suits us. We never really liked that stuff anyway. If we get it through winning, cool, but we like to keep our hard hats down and keep grinding."

Since the franchises that share MetLife Stadium last played a meaningful game, the Jets landed quarterback Aaron Rodgers from the Green Bay Packers and eventually were picked to be the featured team for the summer edition of HBO's "Hard Knocks." As of Thursday afternoon, OddsChecker listed the Jets seventh among betting favorites at +1800 odds to win Super Bowl LVIII this coming February. 

The Giants, meanwhile, share a division with the defending NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles and are flying under the radar heading into September. This New York club has the "boring" Daniel Jones as its starting quarterback and settled a potential contract dispute with star running back Saquon Barkley prior to August. As of Thursday, OddsChecker had the Giants eighth among betting favorites at +2500 odds to merely represent the conference in the upcoming Super Bowl.

"We love that! You know we love that," Cruz said about how the Giants and Jets are viewed this preseason. 

Cruz acknowledged that the Jets "have a chance to do something special" with Rodgers atop the depth chart, but Politi interestingly pointed out that individuals directly associated with the Giants "do not care about the Jets, do not want to talk about the Jets" and "are very happy that you care about the Jets and want to talk about the Jets, as long as it’s not to them."

Rodgers is set to make his unofficial Jets debut against the Giants in Saturday's preseason finale and the teams will later meet for a Week 8 showdown. One assumes Giants players will have more to say about the Jets ahead of the matchup scheduled for Oct. 29 than they did throughout this midweek leadup to their preseason showdown.