Antonio Cromartie Doesn't Think Tom Brady Should Be Suspended
BOSTON (CBS) -- Antonio Cromartie once called Tom Brady a rather unflattering word, but he's just the latest rival of the Patriots quarterback to come to his defense during the whole DeflateGate mess.
Last checked, hell has not frozen over and dogs and cats are not living together.
On Thusday, the Jets cornerback told ESPN's First Take that he doesn't think Tom Brady should be suspended for the ongoing saga, and the NFL overstepped with their four-game ban.
"In the rulebook, there's no suspension in the rules. There's only a $25,000 fine, so I don't see how you can try to lay the hammer down on someone when the rule states for itself there's no suspension for it," said Cromartie. "Are we trying to go back to the Spygate and get more from that? Or are we just leading back to us, saying 'Well, I have full control of everything. I made the rules as it goes, rather than follow the rules of what's already been written.'"
Cromartie said such a severe suspension for a player like Brady sends a disturbing message to the rest of the players in the league. But while he disagrees with commissioner Roger Goodell, he understands it's the players who gave him such power.
"Nobody's safe," he said. "Nobody's safe no matter who you are. Roger is going to do what he wants to do. It don't matter what the rules say. He's going to make his own rules as he goes. And it shouldn't be like that. But at the end of the day, we as players gave him the freedom to do whatever he wants to do. We signed the sheet. So we had our own fault for doing it. We should have been more detailed. We shouldn't have rushed into things. We should have pushed it to another month and a half and made the owners lose money, and then you go from there."
Cromartie isn't always the biggest fan of Brady, but he joins Bernard Pollard and Terrell Suggs as Brady rivals to show their support of the quarterback since his suspension was announced.