The New York Jets signed cornerback Sauce Gardner to a record-breaking extension earlier this week. The two-time First-Team All-Pro defender inked a four-year extension worth $120.4 million. Gardner will earn a league-leading $30.1 million per season (on average) throughout the duration of the extension.
Gardner’s contract slightly surpasses that of Houston Texans cornerback Derek Stingley Jr., who signed a three-year, $90M extension in March ($30M average). The precedent for Gardner’s negotiation was set then. His extension made NFL history in a variety of ways.
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NFL contract extensions nowadays are often determined by percentage of salary cap. If a top-tier player at his position accounts for 10 percent of the salary cap in 2024, then the next top-tier player at that same position will want a contract that takes up a similar percentage of an increasing salary cap in 2025, for example.
Gardner’s extension will take up an average of 10.78% of the Jets’ salary cap. That is the highest for a cornerback since Darrelle Revis in 2014, according to Daniel Salib. It’s another way Gardner’s extension made Jets and NFL history earlier this week.
AS ESPNs Benjamin Solak notes in the tweet Salib quoted, in just six years, Gardner’s average annual salary doubled what Xavien Howard earned as the highest-paid CB ($15.1m APY) in the league in 2019. The cornerback market has absolutely exploded over the previous five seasons. Players like Gardner are pushing the envelope forward.
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This article originally appeared on Jets Wire: Sauce Gardner’s extension made Jets history in more ways than one