Colts’ Zaire Franklin on adding CB Sauce Gardner: ‘It’s a huge positive’
Indianapolis Colts linebacker Zaire Franklin discusses the addition of cornerback Zaire Franklin.
Several Colts players spoke of bittersweet feelings following Tuesday’s NFL trade deadline, as they embraced the excitement of adding an All-Pro corner in Sauce Gardner at the expense of AD Mitchell.After seeing just four targets over the Colts’ last five games, leading to just two catches for 15 yards, Mitchell now becomes the Jets’ No. 2 receiver.Mitchell’s now-former teammates said he was in relatively good spirits after the news, and they were happy for the fresh start he’d landed.
INDIANAPOLIS – Zaire Franklin was at home in his basement Tuesday afternoon when his phone vibrated. Friends upstairs heard a scream sparked first by elation, followed by curiosity and then that sinking feeling in his stomach.
Trades like this in the NFL – ones at the deadline for a two-time All-Pro cornerback like his new teammate Sauce Gardner – don’t come cheap.
And Tuesday’s deal, Colts general manager Chris Ballard’s second in his nine seasons at the helm, was no different, marking the first deadline deal in six years involving multiple first-round picks in the NFL.
But that wasn’t all.
“You’re looking at your phone, and you see ‘Sauce Gardner traded to the Colts’ and immediately, you’re turned up,” Franklin told IndyStar on Wednesday. “But then at the backend, you’re like, ‘I’ve got to see what the details are and what was given up – or who was given up.’
“You know on one hand what that means when you get a player like him for your defense, but at the same time, you’ve gotta feel for AD.”
AD – second-year wide receiver Adonai Mitchell, the Colts’ 2024 second-round pick – was the ‘who’ in Tuesday’s Colts-Jets deal, a detail that surfaced shortly after reports of the transaction broke. According to The Athletic, Mitchell, who flashed raw athleticism in his year-plus in Indianapolis, but who had fallen out of favor with the coaching staff after his pair of costly mistakes in a Sept. 28 loss to the Rams, became part of Tuesday’s trade late in the process at the New York front office’s request.
In short: Mitchell was not merely some inconsequential salary match or roster adjustment to make ends meet. He arrives at a new home, having seen just four targets over the last five weeks – for one of which he was a healthy scratch and another where he was benched until the Colts pulled their starters and needed a warm-body at receiver in the closing minutes in a blowout win over the Raiders.
After letting the ball slip out of his hands a yard short of the goal line against the Rams – allowing what should’ve been a 76-yard touchdown catch-and-run become a 75-yard catch and fumble through the endzone for a Rams’ touchback, in a game the Colts lost by seven points, no less – Colts coach Shane Steichen said publicly that Mitchell would have to “earn” his way back onto the field and into the mix in a packed receivers room that includes three players already above 500 yards through nine games.
Only one other team in the league (the Chargers) has two such players.
Mitchell spoke two weeks ago about returning from being benched with one catch for eight yards against the Chargers on Oct. 19 and the inner turmoil of trying to keep his head down, not knowing if he might’ve played his last offensive snap and doing his best to put the team first – even if that meant playing a larger role on special teams as a fill-in gunner than at wideout on offense.
With the Jets, the former Colts receiver now takes over a starting role as New York’s No. 2 receiver alongside young star Garrett Wilson, who is working to make a return this week from a hyper-extended knee that kept him sidelined this past month – a far cry from being buried on Indianapolis’ depth chart.
In eight games in 2025, Mitchell has caught just nine balls on 16 targets for 152 yards – nearly half of that yardage compiled in maybe the lowest moment of his professional career. As a rookie, he caught 23 passes for 312 yards, both fourth-most on the team.
Now-former Colts teammates who had the chance to see and/or speak with Mitchell after the trade went down said he was in relatively good spirits and recognized the potential of a fresh start.
“It’s tough, man. It’s a tough business,” fellow wideout Alec Pierce, who saw Mitchell on Tuesday, told reporters Wednesday. “I’m excited for him to hopefully get a lot of opportunities in New York. He’s a special player, special talent, and I know he can do so much in this league, so I’m excited to watch him.
“Honestly, I think that’ll be good for him to get a fresh start. I just told him that I appreciated him and was thankful for him. I picked (through his game film) a lot. He does so many different things, like creating separation and doing some different moves. He’s just somebody I felt like brought the (wide receivers) room up, and we were all able to learn from him.”
Though both sides ultimately found solace in the situation, Mitchell wasn’t the only one struggling to deal with the bittersweet fallout of the NFL’s trade deadline.
“We (were) sad AD left. That’s my brother, but to have an elite cornerback coming here, it’s really special, and it shows the staff is all-in on us this season, so we’re excited,” Colts receiver Josh Downs said. “I just told him, ‘Bro, you’ve got a fresh start.’
“He was definitely in good spirits. He was of course a little bummed, having to leave the team that drafted him, but at the end of the day, it’s a new opportunity for him, and he can go show the Jets just how good he is, and they can get him out there and feature him.”
Franklin, the eight-year NFL veteran, had taken Mitchell under his wing in the fallout of the Colts’ loss in Los Angeles, counseling the 23-year-old to work just as he always had – if not harder – despite his scaled back on-field role on gamedays. The worst thing that could come from all this, Franklin told his then-teammate, would be his next significant opportunity catching him by surprise and not being ready for it.
And that’s what Franklin had witnessed in the five weeks since, not to mention what he gleaned from the pair’s short phone call on Wednesday, Mitchell having just finished up work with the JUGS machine and film work just hours after being traded, already inside his new team’s facility.
“You’re going into a new building, and they don’t know you, so you’ve got to make that first impression,” Franklin recalled of his message to Mitchell Wednesday. “His work ethic is already out of this world.
“I think it’s all going to come together, and he can go out there and make a career out of it.”
Joel A. Erickson and Nathan Brown cover the Colts all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Colts Insider newsletter.