In a move not worthy of a retweet, Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie deactivated his Twitter account on Tuesday night, calling an end to a social media career that was often a mess.
Cromartie, who went by the Twitter handle of @ACromartie and had over 148,000 followers at the time he deleted his account, was an oft-controversial and not short of opinions in his tweets. Turning heads in many of his nearly 6,500 tweets, Cromartie did everything from talk trash to offer spiritual, Biblical-based advice to his followers.
Now, he tweets no more and there’s no indication why he wrote on Tuesday night that “this is last post on Twitter taking my page down have fun < -- it was a good run…”
The abrupt end has raised more than an eyebrow with Jets fans.
“I believe Antonio Cromartie quit Twitter on his own accord. Being an outspoken celebrity, with his history of children out of wedlock, can attract some interesting tweets. I’m not saying that ‘Cro’ backed down; I’m guessing it just got old and tired,” said Erik Manassy, a social media consultant and founder of JetsTwit.com which tracks the Jets on social media outlets.
“The New York Jets have an open policy where anyone in the organization can speak their mind anytime and anywhere. I’d be very surprised if they approached him to close his account.”
Cromartie earned cheers and eye rolls for many of his opinions. One of the more opinionated tweets was directed at Seahwaks quarterback Matt Hasselack who criticized Cromartie’s comments about last year’s NFL lockout. Cromartie messaged, “Hasselbeck hey Matt if u have something to then say it be a man about it. Don’t erase it. I will smash ur face in.”
Hasselbeck apologized for the tweet that led to the Jets cornerback’s response.
Recently, Cromartie used his 140-character bully pulpit to lobby for free agents to join the Jets, speculate on why he’d like to be moved to safety and criticize the trade for Tim Tebow. Apparently Cromartie didn’t spend the offseason thumbing through Henry Kissinger’s Diplomacy as he took a shot at the Jets bringing in the backup quarterback to the team.
“Y bring Tebow in when we need to bring in more Weapons for @Mark_Sanchez let’s build the team around him. We already signed to 3 year ext,” Cromartie tweeted about quarterback Mark Sanchez’s contract extension, signed shortly before the Jets traded for Tebow.
There was no explanation or follow-up from Cromartie on why his foray into social media has now ended. The Jets did not respond to a request asking why Cromartie pulled his account.
Follow Jets beat writer Kristian Dyer on Twitter @KristianRDyer for more offseason Jets news.
