The Giants made wide receiver Hakeem Nicks’s return to the team official on Tuesday afternoon when they announced his signing and Victor Cruz’s placement on season-ending injured reserve.
A second act for Nicks with the Giants seemed like a long shot after he left the team following the 2013 season. Injuries and contract squabbles had halted a promising start to his NFL career and Nicks did little to suggest the Giants were wrong to let him go during stops in Indianapolis and Tennessee.
Cruz’s injury opened the door, though, and Nicks said Tuesday that he was hoping something would happen to allow him to return to the team that made him a first-round pick in 2009.
“I knew I could help a lot of teams. I knew once November, December came around I was going to be getting a call. I wanted it to be from here,” Nicks said, via Ralph Vacchiano of the New York Daily News. “This is home. You know what they say, ‘Let a dog roam, he’ll find his way home.’ They left the back door open for me.”
Nicks isn’t likely to step into the slot role that Cruz was expected to fill before his calf injury ruined his 2015 season. If he can make a positive impact on the outside, it would enable the Giants to be creative with how they deploy receivers like Odell Beckham, Rueben Randle and Dwayne Harris over the final six weeks of the season.
That may be an unlikely outcome given what we’ve seen (or not seen this year) from Nicks over the last two years, but Nicks has his chance to turn back the clock.