Sauce Gardner is scaring Jets fans before the season even starts

Sauce Gardner simply has to be more self-aware.
New York Jets v Buffalo Bills
New York Jets v Buffalo Bills | Kara Durrette/GettyImages

With a new regime in place, the New York Jets hope that the 2025 NFL season will be the start of something special for a franchise that finds itself in a rough spot following the failed Aaron Rodgers era. One player that New York hopes will play a crucial role for the franchise for the next half-decade or longer is Sauce Gardner. For him to be the franchise icon the Jets hope he is, he's going to have to be more self-aware, though.

After performing like one of the NFL's best cornerbacks in each of his first two seasons, Gardner took a substantial step back in the 2024 campaign. Despite that, Gardner called his 2024 season “pretty smooth," and went as far as to say, “It’s never as bad as people try to paint it to be."

This mindset is a confusing one, to say the least, and is one Jets fans shouldn't be comfortable with.

Sauce Gardner must come to realization Jets fans know

Gardner might not have been awful by NFL standards. In fact, he was pretty darn good relative to the average cornerback. With that being said, though, Gardner is not the average NFL cornerback. In his first two seasons, he was almost universally considered one of the two or three best at the position. That wasn't the case in 2024.

Gardner's PFF grade sat at 70.2 in 2024, good for 46th among 222 cornerbacks. Again, not bad, but he ranked third among 229 cornerbacks with an 88.6 grade in 2023, and first among 236 cornerbacks with an 87.9 grade in 2022. There was a clear dip in 2024. Most alarmingly, his coverage grade fell to 73.1 after sitting at 90 or above in each of his first two seasons. Again, he went from arguably the best cornerback in the sport to merely good but not great in 2024. This being the first year of his career without an All-Pro nomination proves just that.

Jets need Sauce Gardner to revert back to previous form

I'm not here to say Gardner was close to the reason why the Jets were one of the most disappointing teams in the NFL last season. I will say that his decline in production certainly helped play a role in their defense not meeting expectations. For the Jets' defense to get back to the elite levels it was at, they'll need Gardner to be the player he once was.

The Jets need more than they got last season from Gardner, plain and simple, especially if they make him one of the NFL's highest-paid cornerbacks in the coming weeks.

Jets fans need certainty that Gardner isn't satisfied with how his 2024 season went, because it wasn't good enough based on the standards he set. Hopefully, that off-year was just that, rather than a worrisome trend.