But Cromartie guaranteed Brady will be picking on him by telling the Daily News on Tuesday that he hates Brady and that he’s “an ass—-.”…

“I try to just throw where the guys are open,” Brady said Wednesday. “I don’t think I pick out players.”

Cromartie didn’t back off his comments, and Brady is not going to back off throwing at him….

Three years ago, during the Patriots’ undefeated regular season, Steelers safety Anthony Smith guaranteed Pittsburgh would beat New England. That didn’t work out so well. The Patriots won, 34-13, and Brady burned Smith for two touchdowns.

“Those plays just kind of came up as they did,” Brady said. “I don’t think there were plays on the call sheet to go after a particular player. That’s the way the reads went, and he happened to be there in those situations.”

Sure. Just like Brady’s reads will take him right to Cromartie on Sunday.

– Gary Myers, N.Y. Daily News.

That’s more than I usually like to excerpt from any one article, but Myers kept coming back to the same point. He seems to really think Tom Brady will now try to “pick on” or “throw at” Antonio Cromartie more than he would have if Cromartie didn’t call him an ass—- in public.

How can that be?

Does anyone really think Tom Brady — remarkable competitor, obvious ass—- and one of the best quarterbacks of all time — is going to change his game plan because of something someone said about him? Can it possibly work like that?

Of course Brady is going to throw Cromartie’s direction sometimes, but it’s going to have a lot more to do with Cromartie’s open man than Cromartie’s running mouth.

It seems almost insulting to Brady — and I’m all for insulting Brady, mind you — to suggest otherwise. He’s going to put aside doing everything he can to win a playoff football game to seek some petty vengeance? Tom Brady’s going to do that? Really?

As I suggested yesterday, I suspect that this type of thing is fun for fans and great for filling papers, but utterly meaningless in terms of the actual game on the field. These men are professional football players, even if some of them happen to wear man-UGGs.

Cromartie himself said, “They can have all the (bulletin-board) material that they want. It’s about what you do in between those white lines. They don’t care what we say in the media.”

In the interest of fairness — even though I have no interest in fairness — I present our man Mark Weinstein’s column for MSG.com. Mark, a Giants fan, has no patience for the Jets’ antics, though he stops far short of insinuating that they have any impact on the actual game. And he presents a pretty hilarious chart.

“That’s part of his preparation,” Lowery said. “There’s a little bit of gamesmanship in how he does it.”

Asked to elaborate on what he viewed as gamesmanship, Lowery continued: “It’s really about what you do. I don’t think he talks to talk. He speaks from his heart. Sometimes, there’s a misconception about that. People think that he’s being cocky, or just talking to talk. He says it because he believes it. Or he wants to.”

Of course, whenever Ryan tweaks New England quarterback Tom Brady with his comments, or has fun in a news conference at Belichick’s expense, pundits suggest that he is simultaneously providing additional motivation for the Patriots. Most Jets dismissed this theory Tuesday. A trip to the A.F.C. title game, a chance to end the season of a bitter rival — that should be all the motivation either team requires, they said.

– Greg Bishop, N.Y. Times.

Good writeup by Bishop covering the Jets’ reactions to and opinions of Rex Ryan’s press-conference bravado.

The big question — and one Bishop and some Jets get at in the piece — is if it makes any difference at all what anyone says during the week? Is there any chance the Patriots or Jets actually derive additional motivation from anything Rex Ryan says in a press conference?

I can’t say for certain, obviously. But I’d lean toward no. As D’Brickashaw Ferguson suggests in the article’s concluding quote, it’s not like anyone involved needs extra motivation to win a playoff game.

It’s impossible to prove one way or the other, of course. I’m certain there are examples in which teams seem to have responded — positively or negatively — to public comments from coaches, players, owners, whoever. But we’ll never know if they actually did, or the game just happened to play out to make it appear that they did.

I suppose one argument — one that I recall coming up a lot in relation to Bobby Valentine — is that Ryan could be taking pressure off his team by putting the focus on himself. But again, there’s no way to know if media pressure on a team has any real effect on that team.

Cromartie, in his first year with the Jets after four years with the Chargers, backed up Ryan Tuesday when he was asked by the Daily News if he’s ever seen Brady pointing after the Patriots score.

“We see that a lot. He does it a lot,” Cromartie said. “That’s the kind of guy he is. We really don’t give a damn, to tell you the truth.”

Okay, what kind of guy is Brady?

“An ass—-.

“—- him.”

– Gary Myers, N.Y. Daily News.

Amen, brother.

Antonio Cromartie just catapulted himself from “That guy with all the children that’s not as good as Revis” to “total hero.” I wish more athletes said stuff like this, because it sounds almost exactly like I do when I talk about Tom Brady with my friends and family. I suppose after enough profanity-laced tirades you’d wind up in the crosshairs for a whole assload of media sanctimony, but sanctimonious media types are ass—-s too. —- ’em.

Later in the same press conference, Cromartie said, “If you’re an ass—-, you’re an ass—-,” which just became the frontrunner to be my epitaph.