Antonio Cromartie is doing his best not be an a$%hole

NewsDay:

And all that trash talk Cromartie has been known to dabble in? He keeps it on the field, not in the locker room. His original rant at Brady stemmed from an incident during the Patriots' 45-3 win over the Jets on Dec. 6, 2010, at Gillette Stadium. Cromartie thought Brady taunted to the Jets after throwing a TD pass, and the cornerback was furious.

"[Brady] has a lot of Philip Rivers in him, from a competitive standpoint," Cromartie said, referring to his former teammate in San Diego. "Guys are going to talk trash to you."

And if Brady did something like that again? "It's football," Cromartie said. "Just go about your business and try to make a play on the next one."
Same guy, different mind-set. The right one, actually.

Definitely an interesting read on Cromartie here. He basically says that he wasn't trying very hard until Revis told him earlier this year that he needed to play better. Apparently that was a shock to his system. Revis went down for the year a couple of days later and Cromartie knew that he had to be the leader of the team.

The Jets secondary hasn't struggled as much as many expected it to without Revis. Though really that shouldn't be that surprising. I always thought that Darrelle Revis' significance was over-hyped. I understand how good the guy is, and that he routinely shuts down number one receivers, but he's still just a cornerback. When your best defensive player is a cornerback, it doesn't help disguise other deficiencies like an elite pass rusher would.

So, Cromartie has taken on the Revis role and has done pretty well with it.

I certainly don't discount the Jets and I'm expecting a tough game. Cromartie may be a dick, but he's a good corner. Maybe he'll shut down Brandon Lloyd again.