The Sauce Gardner trade happened just under a year ago: on November 4th of last year, the Indianapolis Colts traded their 2026 first-round pick, 2027 first-round pick, and second-year receiver Adonai Mitchell to the New York Jets in exchange for the star cornerback. The Jets had made Gardner the highest-paid cornerback in the league over the summer, but after a poor start to the season, they were looking to commit fully to a rebuild and offload their best players. The 7-2 Colts seemed like the team that would finally let Gardner’s skills contribute to a playoff push.
The trade already looks like a big swing and a miss for the Colts less than a year later. Since trading for the former Cincinnati Bearcat, the Colts have gone 1-9 in their last ten games, missing last season’s playoffs and starting this year 0-2. Their failures last season can be attributed in large part to Daniel Jones’ Achilles Tear in Week 14, but the Colts’ start to 2026 hasn’t been much more encouraging. When they traded for Gardner, Indy had a powerful offense and below-average defense; a year removed from the trade, they have the same predicament.
Were The Colts One Piece Away?
Teams that trade multiple high draft picks for a single player believe they are a piece or two away from contention. The Rams believed that Myles Garrett would be their missing piece, the Cowboys hoped Quinnen Williams would help keep their defense afloat, and the Packers thought Micah Parsons would be the pass rusher they’d been seeking for years. Clearly, Indianapolis believed their deficiencies in the secondary to be the one thing holding them back from serious playoff contention.
The stats tell a different story. After two games, the Colts have the worst defense in the league by a wide margin. They’ve allowed 514.5 yards per game, 37 points per game, and 7.2 yards per play, all worst in the NFL. They have the 32nd-ranked passing defense and 31st-ranked rushing defense, behind only Carolina and their historically bad Week 1 performance against the Bears.
The Colts’ poor start isn’t a complete indictment of the defense. They’ve had the misfortune of playing two of the most explosive offenses in the NFL in the Ravens and Chiefs, led by two of the league’s best quarterbacks in Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson. In all likelihood, they will rise back into the 18-26 range of defenses – back where they finished in 2025 and where they stood heading into Week 10 when they traded for Gardner in the first place.
Opportunity Cost Of The Sauce Gardner Trade
The evaluation of a blockbuster trade like Gardner’s should encompass not only the moving parts of the deal but also the opportunity cost of paying the player’s expensive salary. The Colts are using about 10% of their salary cap on Gardner’s contract. It is worth questioning, beyond the massive draft capital that Indy expended to get him, whether the money they are paying Gardner might be better served on two or three players.
The best part of hitting on a draft pick, especially one on Day Two or Day Three of the draft, is that they are excellent players who are on cheap contracts. Trading draft picks for a player on a large deal means trading that opportunity for the (presumable) guarantee that an established player can make. For a team that is truly one player away (2021 Rams are a good example), that gamble may work. For a team as imperfect as the Colts, it just further hamstrings their ability to fill out their roster and shore up the weak spots that the Gardner trade was aimed at fixing to begin with.
