No hip surgery for Jets' Antonio Cromartie
Jets' Antonio Cromartie says he will be 100 percent better by the end of next month. (Nov. 24, 2013) Credit: Getty Images
Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie said Thursday that he will not need surgery on his troublesome right hip and expects to be 100 percent by the end of next month.
Cromartie, who played with a hip flexor injury most of this past season, said he saw a hip specialist two to three weeks ago and got the good news that rest and rehab should do the trick.
"This is the first time since the second week of the preseason I feel close to 100 percent," Cromartie said at the Jets House Super Bowl event near Penn Station. "I'm feeling good. Just rehabbing."
Cromartie said the season was "rough. Just from the standpoint of dealing with my hip flexor injury and just trying to figure out what we've got to try to do. I think it was frustrating for me just because I wasn't able to play at the level I needed to play at."
Cromartie said he expects to be "better than I was" last season if he's healthy in 2014. But there's no guarantee he'll be with the Jets. He has a $5-million bonus due in March, and the Jets could cut him before then and try to bring him back at a smaller salary. Cromartie said there have been no talks yet.
"That's something that I let my agents and them take care of," he said. "So I haven't worried about it. I think my biggest thing for me is just trying to make sure I stay healthy."
Asked if he expected to be back with the Jets, Cromartie said: "Definitely. I mean I want to be back, but at the end of the day it's a business and that's how I treat it. My business is to make sure that my body is as healthy as possible because I've got to make sure that if anything goes wrong -- if it goes the opposite way that I'm not here -- that I'm healthy for the next team."
As for the Super Bowl, Cromartie said he never expected to see one in the New York area and didn't sound as if he thought it was a great idea.
"It's too cold here to have a Super Bowl," he said.
Cromartie predicted the Broncos would beat the Seahawks, 27-17. That's not a shock since his cousin Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie plays for Denver.
