dealt him to the Indianapolis Colts<\/a> midway through the 2025 season.<\/p>\nIn an interview ahead of the Super Bowl in California, Gardner extolled Jets head coach Aaron Glenn and the culture he has established in Florham Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has a very tough mindset,\u201d Gardner said of Glenn. \u201cLike, \u2018This is the way that things are going to be.\u2019 Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, that\u2019s the right way. He\u2019s very disciplining, he\u2019s going to discipline his players. And if you\u2019re not on the same accord, you\u2019re just not going to be there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited to see what they (the Jets) have in store. Given him having a whole season of seeing, alright, this is what we need, and this person, this is the group of men that we need.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI truly believe [Glenn] and [Jets GM Darren] Mougey, them two cooking together, they\u2019re going to do their thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gardner signed a four-year, $120.4 million contract extension with the Jets last July. Less than four months later, following an 0-7 start to the regular season, Gardner was shockingly traded to the Colts on the day of the NFL\u2019s trade deadline. New York received two first-round picks (2026 and 2027) and wide receiver Adonai Mitchell for the two-time All-Pro cornerback.<\/p>\n
At the time of the trade, the Colts were 7-2, sitting atop the AFC standings. After the trade, Indianapolis stumbled to a 1-7 finish, resulting in an 8-9 record and a fifth consecutive season out of the playoffs. As a result, the Jets\u2019 2026 first-round pick via Indianapolis landed at 16th overall.<\/p>\n
Due to a calf injury, Gardner played in only four games for the Colts, leaving two of them early. Indianapolis went 1-3 in Gardner\u2019s appearances, with the Cincinnati product recording 16 tackles, three passes defended, and no interceptions across 196 defensive snaps. In coverage, Gardner allowed 7-of-13 passing for 51 yards and no touchdowns, committing one penalty.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Glenn and the Jets have endured a tumultuous few weeks since the regular season concluded. The team parted ways with 10 coaches, including offensive coordinator Tanner Engstrand, and that total does not include Steve Wilks, who was fired in-season.<\/p>\n
After weeks of speculation, Glenn finally settled on two new coordinators, hiring Brian Duker on defense and Frank Reich on offense. Next, the Jets still have to fill out the majority of their assistant coaching roles.<\/p>\n
The waters are murky in Florham Park, but the Jets\u2019 former superstar seems optimistic about Glenn\u2019s ability to steer the ship in the right direction, even after he was \u201cstunned\u201d<\/a> by their decision to trade him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Are the Jets lost in the sauce? Sauce Gardner doesn\u2019t seem to think so, even after New York…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2051],"tags":[1585,7,3228,226,1917,255,2321,2097,6,4403,3231,7536,3234],"class_list":{"0":"post-734255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-jets","8":"tag-aaron-glenn","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-free-content","11":"tag-jets","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-jets","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkjets","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-ny-jets-coaches","18":"tag-ny-jets-news","19":"tag-sauce-gardner","20":"tag-standard"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116025742174433940","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}