Giants Should Honor Victor Cruz With Salsa Celebration

The NFL, it’s often said, stands for the No Fun League, as it looks with a gimlet eye toward such threats to our children as group touchdown celebrations and using the football as a prop. Gone are the days when Washington's Fun Bunch jumped en masse for a high five to celebrate a touchdown (which is too bad) and gone are the days when a celebrating player gets down on his knees and performs mock CPR on a football (which is the kind of tasteless potentiality that exists when you give players carte blanche).

But ya know what’s not outlawed? Touchdown celebration dances like Victor Cruz’s salsa, which unfortunately we will not be seeing from No. 80 again this year following last week’s season-ending knee injury.

I have to admit, the first time I saw Cruz celebrate with his patented dance several years ago, I thought it was too cute by half. Not only did he look, well, a little non-masculine, but it immediately summoned the old saw “act like you’ve been there before.”

For years, I thought the gold standard for NFL touchdown celebrations was set by Barry Sanders, who would cross the goal line, flip the ball to the referee and then head for the sidelines. No pomp and circumstance, no CPR, no merengue (or whatever Barry dances to in the privacy of his own home). That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it when Butch Johnson dropped to his knees after a touchdown and gunned people down with his six-shooting fingers, or when the Fun Bunch jumped to slap hands. But then me-first prima donnas like Terrell Owens started carrying Sharpies in their socks, and the impromptu celebrations now seemed mostly canned and rehearsed.

“Look at me, look at me!”

No, thanks.

When Victor Cruz burst onto the scene in 2011, with 1,536 receiving yards and nine touchdowns, he started celebrating his scores by dancing the salsa. I was hardly the only one who wasn’t impressed. Not because of bad technique -- my dance sources tell me his form is nearly flawless -- but because the whole exercise struck me as obnoxious and self-serving. I didn’t know the back story, which I didn’t learn until 2012, when 49ers defensive back Carlos Rogers intercepted a pass intended for Cruz and celebrated by doing the salsa.

I thought that was hilarious.

Cruz did not share that sentiment, and I soon learned why: He danced the salsa after scoring touchdowns as a tribute to his late grandmother, who had taught him the dance and loved to see him perform it.

*Gulp*

Rogers changed his tune, saying he didn’t realize that Cruz did the dance as a show of respect for his grandmother. I had a change of heart, too. Something that struck me as obnoxious and non-masculine now struck me as respectful and non-masculine.

After Cruz’s recent injury, Giants teammates were shaken, disturbed by a fluke injury to a player who had been undrafted out of college and had earned the respect of his peers by persevering. This week, the idea was floated that several players would honor Cruz in this week’s game against the Cowboys by writing No. 80 on their sneakers. And if Odell Beckham Jr., Rueben Randle or Preston Parker manage to score a touchdown, the possibility exists that they’ll honor Cruz by dancing the salsa.

The only people who wouldn’t enjoy that are Cowboys fans and people with no souls.

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