INDIANAPOLIS — There was a charge to the Colts’ team meeting on Wednesday.

When the players said their usual ‘Good morning,’ there was more excitement behind, a little more than middle linebacker Zaire Franklin remembers during his long career in Indianapolis.

The Colts emerged from the trade deadline with the NFL’s biggest prize, trading two first-round picks and wide receiver Adonai Mitchell to the Jets to get Sauce Gardner, one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL.

Gardner was already in the building on Wednesday morning.

The message from the front office to the locker room was loud and clear.

“It just says they believe in what we’ve got going on,” middle linebacker Zaire Franklin said.

A lot of trade deadlines have come and gone in Indianapolis without the Colts making a move.

Indianapolis hasn’t made a trade at the deadline since 2022, and that deal was a little different. Running back Nyheim Hines asked to be dealt in the middle of a season that was on its way to collapse, and the Colts were able to get Zack Moss and a late draft pick from the Bills in exchange for granting Hines’ wish.

Before that deal, the last time the Colts made a deal at the deadline was a decade ago, long before general manager Chris Ballard was running the front office.

But Indianapolis hasn’t been in the position it currently occupies under Ballard, sitting in the AFC’s No. 1 seed after a scorching 7-2 start that has shocked just about everybody.

The Colts needed help on the defensive side of the ball, particularly at a cornerback position that has been snakebitten by injury this season. That doesn’t mean the players were expecting a move.

“To be honest with you, I really didn’t expect nothing,” nose tackle Grover Stewart said. “When it happened, it surprised me, and I was happy.”

Nearly everyone was surprised the Jets were willing to trade Gardner less than four months after signing him to a four-year contract extension worth more than $100 million.

Veteran Colts cornerback Kenny Moore II was teaching part-time at Cardinal Ritter High when the news broke on his off day — Moore has a partnership with the school through his Love One Foundation — and it felt like the entire school was excited.

“Everybody’s phone was blowing up, not just peer-to-peer or colleague-to-colleague, but my family was like, ‘Oh my God, you guys are getting Sauce?’” Moore said.

The Gardner deal was the first time a team had dealt a first-round pick at the deadline since Denver shipped Bradley Chubb to the Dolphins in 2022, and no cornerback had been dealt for a first-rounder since the Los Angeles Rams sent two first-rounders and a fourth-round pick to Jacksonville for Jalen Ramsey in 2019.

Indianapolis hasn’t sent a first-round pick for a player at the trade deadline since the ill-fated Trent Richardson deal in 2013.

The Colts could feel the weight of that history on Tuesday.

“Probably one of those record-breaking, historic type of situations,” Moore said.

The Colts know Gardner instantly transforms the defense.

By adding another cornerback who can match up against an opposing team’s No. 1 wide receiver, Indianapolis is setting its defense up for a stretch run that includes a string of big-name quarterbacks and excellent passing offenses, not to mention the quarterbacks the Colts will likely see if they’re able to make a deep playoff run.

The Indianapolis defense expects to get its No. 1 cornerback, Charvarius Ward, back at some point — Ward was working on the practice field with trainers Wednesday — and now can pair Ward with Gardner to form one of the NFL’s most decorated cornerback tandems.

“When you’re able to get a player like him midseason, it just opens up the possibilities of everything we can do,” Franklin said. “He’s a great player, an extremely smart player. Just talking to him about different situations, what he’s comfortable with obviously aligns with what we’ve already got going on.”

Gardner’s arrival will change the playing time for some of the other Colts cornerbacks.

For example, Jaylon Jones returned to a starting role on the outside against Pittsburgh last week, but when Gardner and Ward are healthy, Jones becomes more of a matchup piece on the outside.

No matter.

“Oh man, love it,” Jones said. “Great addition to the room. Big, physical corner. Put him in isolation, let him take guys out of the game. It’s going to be fun. I can’t wait to see.”

The implications of the move were obvious to the locker room.

The Colts have a chance to do something special this season, and the front office recognizes the possibility.

“Turn it up a notch,” Moore said. “Keep the same expectations: We’re going out there to win.”

And win big.