The Indianapolis Colts traded for cornerback Sauce Gardner last season for one reason: The player is very good at his job. Maybe one could argue that general manager Chris Ballard gave up too much for Gardner, but not that the corner isn't good. That is a statistical fact.
Yet, according to ESPN's Jeremy Fowler in a recent ranking of the top cornerbacks in the NFL heading into 2026 (Gardner ranks ninth), one unnamed NFL coach doesn't believe the player is truly elite. In fact, the coach tried to be funny in his observations of the Colts' player, though to say he fell flat would be an understatement.
Fowler writes that the coach says, "Sauce lost the sauce. Now, he got traded for a reason -- he's a long strider and has the confidence to overshadow his weaknesses. He can press and play Cover 2. But he's not going to tackle all the time; he's not going to crack replace, and when playing zone, sometimes he's not playing it correctly. It's just hard for him to hold up over the course of the game."
Indianapolis Colts can easily dismiss one coach's negativity about Sauce Gardner
(To be fair, the grammar is odd in the article. Did the coach mean to simply say, "He got traded for a reason (because he's good)," or that he got traded because Gardner has a lot of confidence and covers a lot of ground?)
Either way, Indianapolis can likely laugh off the observation, whoever it was from. While Gardner still needs to prove his fit in defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo's system, as the cornerback only played in four games last season for Indy after the trade. A calf injury caused the former All-Pro to miss four games.
The cornerback will also only be 25 years old when the 2026 season gets underway. He is unlikely to suddenly become ineffective at such a young age. Gardner hasn't lost the skills that made him great in the NFL quite quickly, and he could only get better than he was with the New York Jets, the team that drafted him.
According to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), Gardner's quarterback rating allowed with the Indianapolis Colts at the end of last season was only 63.3, an extraordinarily low number. He had three passes broken up and didn't allow a touchdown. He also gave up just 7.3 yards per reception.
As far as tackling concerns, the cornerback wasn't credited with a missed tackle after joining Indy. His career missed tackle rate is 12.1 percent, which is a good number for a cornerback.
He could maybe have a few more interceptions, but his number is reduced because quarterbacks tend to stay away from Sauce Gardner's side of the field. If he got thrown at more, he'd have more picks. That is simple math.
In terms of the implication that Gardner doesn't do well in zone coverage, that is what Anarumo ran most of 2025, and in limited games, the cornerback did quite well. Plus, if a team has a player like Gardner, why not play more man coverage?
The bottom line is that any negativity about the Colts' Gardner is probably just a coach being miffed that his team didn't trade for the elite corner. Indianapolis was lucky enough to do so.
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