Posted on August 25, 2016, by Travis Pulver
The Indianapolis Colts will live and die according to the arm and health of quarterback Andrew Luck—which is why Jim Irsay decided to pay him such an insane amount of money. However, while Luck is capable of much, Irsay knows he can’t do it all by himself. He needs a few playmakers on offense, a half-way decent offensive line, and a defense that can at least slow the other team down.
So when the secondary was decimated by injuries after just two preseason games, something needed to be done if the Colts were going to survive the pass-happy AFC South.
Via Colts.com
Indianapolis’s best defensive back, Vontae Davis, is going to be out with a sprained MCL at least two or three games into the regular season. The other starting corner, Patrick Robinson, injured his groin against the Baltimore Ravens. Darius Butler is nursing a hamstring injury, and D’Joun Smith is still recovering from a knee injury that brought his rookie season to an early end.
With so many injuries to their secondary, there was a need which the team was going to have to address before the start of the season—and they did by signing free agent cornerback Antonio Cromartie.
Just how much help he ends up being, remains to be seen. He didn’t generate any interest from the rest of the league after the Jets released him in February. Last season he appeared to lose a step, and with hip issues, it is not hard to think he could lose a few more steps this season.
He had to have passed his physical otherwise, the Colts would not have signed him. But even if he has lost a few steps, he still fills a need for the team—a healthy body. Even if he is just a shadow of his former self, he will still be better than what the Colts currently have on the roster–which isn’t much with so many guys injured.
However, while much of the focus in the media has been on how much the Colts need him, the reality of the situation is that he needs them just as much (if not more). Why? Well—he was about to be arrested for failing to pay child support for one of his many kids.
Cromartie is probably more known for the scene on Hard Knocks where he appeared to struggle to name all of his children than he is for anything he has done on a football field. The 32-year has 12 children by eight different women; four with his wife and the last two after having had a vasectomy. Over the years he has had trouble making his many child support payments. When he signed with the Jets in 2010, he needed a $500,000 advance to catch up on payments.
Even though he has made around $44 million in the NFL, he fell behind on his payments for one kid. Somehow, even though he made $7 million with the New York Jets last season, he has not made the $4000 a month payments to the mother of his first child since January (according to TMZ).
It certainly didn’t help when he skipped a court date in Florida last week.
For failing to make those payments, he was in danger of being arrested, but thanks to his new one-year, $3 million contract with the Colts he is in the clear once again—for now (Yahoo).
