play2:08Schefter to McAfee: Jets, Colts felt comfortable to make Sauce Gardner tradeAdam Schefter joins Pat McAfee to break down how the Colts were able to trade for Sauce Gardner.
play0:55McAfee blown away by Jets-Colts Sauce Gardner tradeMcAfee blown away by Jets-Colts Sauce Gardner trade Pat McAfee is stunned by the Colts sending two first-round picks for Sauce Gardner, but is excited by Indianapolis picking up the All-Pro cornerback.
Rich Eisen approves of Jets’ return in Sauce Gardner trade (2:26)Rich Eisen reacts to the Jets trading Sauce Gardner to the Colts for two first-round picks and Adonai Mitchell. (2:26)
Schefter to McAfee: Jets, Colts felt comfortable to make Sauce Gardner tradeAdam Schefter joins Pat McAfee to break down how the Colts were able to trade for Sauce Gardner.
McAfee blown away by Jets-Colts Sauce Gardner tradeMcAfee blown away by Jets-Colts Sauce Gardner trade Pat McAfee is stunned by the Colts sending two first-round picks for Sauce Gardner, but is excited by Indianapolis picking up the All-Pro cornerback.
McAfee blown away by Jets-Colts Sauce Gardner trade Pat McAfee is stunned by the Colts sending two first-round picks for Sauce Gardner, but is excited by Indianapolis picking up the All-Pro cornerback.
Well, none of us can ever accuse the Colts and general manager Chris Ballard of being too patient or conservative again. With Indy stunningly sitting atop the AFC at 7-2 after Daniel Jones’ incredible first half, the Colts made what has to be the most out-of-nowhere NFL trade deadline deal in recent memory Tuesday, sending two first-round picks and wideout Adonai Mitchell to the Jets for star cornerback Sauce Gardner.
It’s a shocking move at first glance for both sides, though it might be a little more in-character after further review. Ballard has generally been a draft-and-develop GM during his time in Indianapolis outside of his moves to try filling the hole at quarterback. But he did send a first-round pick to the 49ers a few years for DeForest Buckner, who continues to impress on the interior of the defensive line for the Colts.
The Jets just signed Gardner to a four-year, $120.4 million extension in July, evoking memories of the Odell Beckham Jr. trade from their local rivals, when Giants general manager Dave Gettleman said he “… didn’t sign [Beckham] to trade him,” then shipped the wideout to the Browns a month later. Gettleman signed Beckham to his deal, but he also inherited the star wideout from the prior Jerry Reese regime, which drafted him in the first round.
It’s certainly a fascinating trade. Does it make sense for both sides? Is there a clear winner now? Let’s break it down, starting with what the Colts are getting.
We don’t have those same metrics for Gardner yet in 2025, but per charting data at Pro-football-reference.com, Gardner’s passer rating against has risen for the third consecutive season, jumping from a 62.7 mark in 2022 to a 98.1 figure across seven games this year under Glenn.
Indy signed Charvarius Ward to fill one starting role this offseason, but he is on injured reserve after suffering a concussion. The Colts just got 2024 starter Jaylon Jones back from IR last week, but they’ve given significant snaps to the likes of Mekhi Blackmon, Johnathan Edwards, Chris Lammons and Cameron Mitchell at cornerback this season, all of whom profile as replacement-level options.
Schefter to McAfee: Jets, Colts felt comfortable to make Sauce Gardner trade
Adam Schefter joins Pat McAfee to break down how the Colts were able to trade for Sauce Gardner.
When Anarumo didn’t have Jessie Bates III, a healthy Chidobe Awuzie and other veterans in the secondary, his defenses suffered. They weren’t able to be quite as creative schematically, and when they tried, a young, underwhelming group of players made too many mental mistakes. Now, with the potential of lining Ward, Moore, Cam Bynum and Gardner in the secondary, Anarumo has veterans who can hold up in coverage and create big plays without many mental lapses.
Gardner’s still in the fourth year of his rookie contract and had his fifth-year option picked up before the extension, so the Colts have six years of cost control. They’re paying Gardner $131.5 million over the next six years, $60.2 million of which is non-guaranteed money between 2029 and 2030. Gardner will likely be looking for a new contract or be released from this existing deal by the start of the 2030 league year.
McAfee blown away by Jets-Colts Sauce Gardner trade
It’s unclear where Indy’s picks will land, but let’s use FPI’s projection of the 26th pick in 2026 and treat the 2027 selection as the 16th pick, since it could land anywhere. Using Ben Baldwin’s non-quarterback draft chart, that’s another $19.1 million per year in surplus value over the next four years. Two and a half years of Mitchell should take that north of $20 million per season.
For the Jets, the calculus is much simpler. They simply decided that they didn’t have a core that was going to develop into a winner. Given that they’ve been the league’s second-worst defense by points allowed per possession since Saleh was fired in 2024, you can understand why they didn’t feel like there was much risk in moving on from previous cornerstone players like Gardner and Quinnen Williams, who was shipped off to the Cowboys for a 2026 second-round pick and a 2027 first-rounder.
Did Glenn think Gardner was miscast as a man-heavy corner and moved on at top value from a player who wasn’t going to look as effective in his scheme? Given that the Jets spent heavily on Brandon Stephens this year and landed a player who is allowing a 116.6 passer rating in coverage this season, are they reliably evaluating who and where they should be investing at corner?
It feels like Gardner has already lived a handful of NFL lives since entering the league as a 22-year-old in 2022. The fourth-overall pick stepped right into the starting lineup for then-coach Robert Saleh and immediately transformed the Jets’ defense, helping it jump from 32nd in points allowed per drive in 2021 to second in 2022 and fourth in 2023. Gardner had a credible case as the best cornerback in football during his debut season and was deservedly a first-team All-Pro in each of his first two campaigns.
That alone might be reason to treat Gardner as something resembling a unicorn. The list of players who were first-team All-Pros in each of their first two seasons in the Super Bowl era might as well be considered Hall of Fame spoilers. It consists of nine players. Running backs Earl Campbell, Eric Dickerson and Barry Sanders are in the Hall, as are legendary edge rusher Lawrence Taylor and return man Devin Hester. Active players Quenton Nelson and Micah Parsons are on a clear path to Canton. The only exception is former Eagles tight end Keith Jackson. Even if you want to give Nelson and Parsons incomplete grades, Gardner’s part of a group where five of the six players who have completed their careers are Hall of Famers. That’s good company.
His missed tackle rate, which was above league-average as a rookie, has been among the worst in the NFL over each of the three ensuing seasons, too. Then again, Deion Sanders wasn’t exactly a great tackler, and that didn’t stop the now-Colorado coach from winning Super Bowls and making it to the Hall of Fame. But that’s a curious fit for a Colts team whose defense has improved, in part, by simply tackling better. Indy led the league with 157 missed tackles last season, 23 more than any other team. They’re in the middle of the pack this season.
At the same time, it’s fair to point out that the pass rush in front of Gardner has declined over that timeframe, too. The Jets were second in the NFL in sack rate between the start of 2022 and Saleh’s firing midway through the 2024 season, and they are 29th since his departure. A massive decline in pass pressure is going to make it more difficult for any cornerback to hold up in coverage. The Colts are 16th in sack rate and 20th in pressure rate this year, but even that’s a major upgrade from what Gardner was dealing with toward the end of his run in New York.
Other metrics make it clear that he can still plaster to opposing receivers. NFL Next Gen Stats noted that 61.9% of Gardner’s targets this season have come on tight-window throws, the highest rate for any regular cornerback in football. Some of that is likely a product of the Jets playing heavy doses of man coverage, which is going to create narrower windows and reduce space between defenders and receivers, but it’s also an indicator that there’s nothing physically wrong with Gardner leading to his decline over that past year-plus.
For Indy and defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo, Gardner’s obviously a major upgrade on what they were rolling out at cornerback. The Colts have cycled through options at corner over the past few years with limited success. Kenny Moore II has been a reliable operator in the slot when healthy, but Stephon Gilmore was one-and-done before being traded, and second-round pick JuJu Brents played just 10 games amid injuries before getting cut at the end of camp. Xavien Howard was signed and retired before Halloween, while former Anarumo favorite Mike Hilton joined earlier this season and quickly hit injured reserve.
Anarumo’s defense is at its best when he has maximum flexibility. Few defensive coaches in the league are better at tinkering, building weekly game plans and adding wrinkles to throw off opposing offenses and their preparation in real-time. The most famous of those moves, of course, was Anarumo shifting toward a three-man rush and drop-eight coverage around halftime against the Chiefs in the 2021 AFC Championship Game, flummoxing one of the league’s best offenses in the process. Kansas City scored 21 points before halftime but just three after the break and through overtime, with Anarumo’s defense stealing away the AFC title and coming within one stop of winning the Super Bowl.
That’s going to give him all kinds of options up front. He has already unlocked some fun things, like using Buckner as a standup rusher over the center, as the Browns did with Myles Garrett last season and the Rams have with Jared Verse at times in 2025. The Colts are 22nd in blitz rate this year, but they’ve been the sixth-best defense in the league by opponent QBR when they do send extra rushers. Anarumo has tried to create sacks and potential interceptions with his sim pressure packages, but does the extra help at cornerback mean the Colts can just send the house more often and trust that the secondary has more hope of holding up behind?