On Monday morning, the increasingly sleazy New York Daily News sought to highlight the Giants’ 27 point away loss to an NFC East rival not with calls for Tom Coughlin and Jerry Reese’s head, but with the above front cover, depicting an unidentified Eagles employee rejoicing over WR Victor Cruz’ departure from the contest. Trouble is, the Eagles employee, who prefers not to give his last name, insists that’s not really what happened. From CBS Philadelphia’s Andrew Porter :
“Angelo, I never call the radio,” Charlie told Angelo Cataldi and the 94WIP Morning Show on Monday morning. “I just want to be clear. I don’t want to make it look bad for Philadelphia, especially me. I got to live with myself. It was fourth and two, which is an exciting play, the ball was overthrown and I just reacted like we just stopped them, so I was just cheering. As soon as I saw him [Cruz] hurt, we—everyone stopped cheering. I didn’t cheer for that. And honestly, if anyone in the Philadelphia media followed it, they’ll see me go down to my knee—not with the players, but I’m actually, I said a prayer for him as well. It was terrible. I would never do that.”
“I just wasn’t portrayed right,” Charlie confirmed to CBSPhilly.com. “I’m upset. It just stinks. My email, my texts. I have friends in New York. I have nothing against New York.”
In reality, as soon as Cruz was down the stadium went silent and respect was shown for the star Giants wideout. Some Eagles fans even chanted Cruz’s name as he was carted off a midst a respectful applause.
“I don’t know, again,” Charlie said of the NY Daily News photo and article. “It’s just upsetting to me. That wasn’t me. I’m not cheering that he got hurt.”