A handful of the last guests to visit Lambeau Field decided to warm up without their shirts on. The Giants can't exactly one-up the Detroit Lions' decision during their regular season finale against the Pack, but the Big Blue wide receivers will embrace that same mentality this weekend.
During the waning moments of Thursday's media availability, Victor Cruz revealed that his corps will be going sleeveless once again in the divisional round matchup in Green Bay, an idea proposed by Hakeem Nicks.
"Hakeem started it after the Washington game because he felt like we came out and we played a little tentative because we worried about the cold and stuff like that," Cruz said. "So we'll just come out with no sleeves and just mentally be ready to go."
The deflating loss to the Redskins in Week 15 was the coldest game of the year at MetLife Stadium in a somewhat mild football season in terms of weather. The Giants wouldn't score a touchdown until there were 33 seconds left in the game, ultimately losing 23-10, while Eli Manning threw three interceptions.
Cruz felt the same the same way as Nicks did afterwards.
"I felt like as a corps, we just came out and we were too worried about the cold and worried about what we were going to wear and be warm out there as opposed to just focusing on what the task was at hand," he said. "It kind of stopped our progress a little bit on the offense."
During their next home game against Dallas, the weather was similar, but the point was driven home. Cruz had six catches for 178 yards while both he and Nicks found the end zone.
"We went no sleeves that game," Cruz said. "As you can see, we did pretty well."
The forecast for this weekend in Green Bay calls for snow showers on Friday and Saturday with temperatures in the low-20s for the 3:40 p.m. (local time) kickoff on Sunday. Recalling a particularly cold game while at UMass against Rhode Island, Cruz said it will probably be the most chilling of his football career.
Sure, the offensive linemen will appreciate the gesture, but Cruz knows his position group has nothing on them.
"We haven't talked to them yet, but those guys have their own stuff going on," Cruz said about his linemen. "Some of them don't wear anything under their pads. They have a whole different deal going. I'll probably go get some advice on how they stay warm or how they try to stay warm, but they have a lot more mass than we do."
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