We’ll get to the interceptions later, even though that’s Antonio Cromartie’s day job, even though he took a clobbering all week for how shakily he performed in that role a week ago. The picks can wait.
Let’s talk about the first play of the game. Let’s start there.
Let’s start with the football soaring high above MetLife Stadium, and 70,000 people inside anxious for things to start, and Cromartie settling under Josh Scobee’s kick 4 yards deep in the end zone. There’s been so much talk that the new kickoff rules have been designed to scrub the most exciting play in football out of the game.
Antonio Cromartie begs to differ.
“If you have that job,” he said, “you have a real opportunity to make your presence felt. You can really give your offense a helping hand with field position if you know what you’re doing.”
Cromartie knows what he’s doing. A year ago, first round of the playoffs, the Jets trailing the Colts by two with a minute left, it was Cromartie who fielded a kickoff a yard deep in the end zone, took it back 47 yards, set the Jets up for what would be a season-defining victory at the gun.
Now, here he was again. The Jets had won the coin toss, eschewed what everyone thought was the Rex Ryan sacrament of deferring possession until the second half, elected to receive. Ryan and everyone else around the Jets had grown tired of hearing about their oft-repeated streak of early-game offensive futility.
“Sixteen games without a first-quarter touchdown,” Cromartie said, shaking his head. “It was hard not to know about it.”
Four yards deep, some returners take the knee. Cromartie never thought about taking a knee. Out he came, slicing through narrow gaps, slide-stepping, dashing down the sideline, out to the 35, and the crowd was alive. And 3 1/2 minutes later, handed splendid field position, Mark Sanchez was finding Santonio Holmes, the Jets were up 7-0 on the way to a resounding 32-3 win over the overmatched Jaguars.
It was a good week to remember just how critical Cromartie’s various talents will be if the Jets hope to fulfill the steep ambitions they have for themselves. A week ago he was toasted for one touchdown by Dez Bryant, was outfought for another one by Miles Austin, and spent the week spinning on the spit of public opinion.
“It’s not like he had a terrible game,” Ryan said, trying to defend him, but the downside of a high-profile position is hearing it in the aftermath of failure. And Cromartie heard it.
“I wasn’t happy with the way I played,” he conceded yesterday. “I was happy we won, but I wasn’t at all happy with my performance.”
Cromartie has to be better than that, and knows it. Unacknowledged in the airspace surrounding the Jets is the residue of summer, when the team so clearly wanted to sign Nnamdi Asomugha to replace him, when they wound up relocating his phone number when they needed a new prom date. Both sides have done their best to make the marriage work. Sometimes, that’s not so easy.
It was easy yesterday. We can talk about the interceptions now, a couple of gifts provided by the soon-to-be-forgotten Luke McCown, he of the 1.8 quarterback rating and the inviting flutterducks the Jets gobbled up four times, two of them by Cromartie, one of them at the Jets’ goal line late in the first half and the other one deep in Jacksonville territory when he missed a pick-six by the length of his shoe.
“Maybe I should’ve run the quarterback over,” he said, laughing, “but we scored after that anyway, so it’s all good, it’s all good.”
Yesterday, it was. Yesterday Cromartie reminded a lot of people why Brad Smith could be expendable, why Asomugha’s decision to pick Philly doesn’t have to be as devastating as it felt at the time. He even contributed a play on offense, turning in one of the hardest-working 1-yard gains you’ll ever see.
“Every little thing I can do,” he said, “I’ll do, and do happily if we win.”
When the Jets finally called and offered sloppy seconds in the summer, Comartie swore he would play with a chip on his shoulder. He has.
The second choice now has a second chance. Yesterday, it was something to see.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com