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Rich Cimini, ESPN Staff Writer
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Sauce Gardner doesn’t do vacations. The New York Jets cornerback doesn’t believe in them. The idea of chilling at a five-star resort, sipping fruity libations on a white-sand beach, doesn’t appeal to him.
First of all, he doesn’t drink alcohol. No sauce for Sauce. Secondly, he’s a homebody. The Jets’ trip to London in two weeks to face the Minnesota Vikings will be his first time out of the country. He said he hasn’t taken a true vacation since entering the NFL in 2022, offering an existential reason.
“Me, personally, I just feel like you’re just trying to escape the lifestyle that you live,” Gardner said in a quiet moment at his locker. “We play football, and we should be training. So going on that long vacation is getting away from what you’re supposed to be.”
Which explains why he reported to the Jets’ facility two weeks after last season ended to begin training, three months ahead of the official start to the offseason program. It’s why his new, sprawling home in New Jersey includes a recovery room, complete with a red-light therapy bed, sauna, cold tub, treadmill and stationary bike.
From the time he was 4 years old, playing flag football in the Tiny Mites league in the Seven Mile section of Detroit, Gardner’s singular focus has been to play in the NFL and be the best cornerback there ever was. A lot of kids dream that dream, but his early-career trajectory aligns with his life plan, and he’s just 24.
Gardner is the only cornerback since the NFL-AFL merger in 1970 to be named first-team All-Pro in each of his first two seasons. Only three defensive players have pulled that off: former New York Giants legend Lawrence Taylor, Dallas Cowboys pass rusher Micah Parsons and Gardner, who said his individual goal this season is to be Defensive Player of the Year.
Now if he could just get his hands on a pass or two, maybe that would silence critics who suggest the sauce isn’t as advertised. He will take a 26-game interception slump into Thursday night against the New England Patriots at MetLife Stadium (8:15 p.m. ET, Prime Video).
Big deal or nah?
LONG BEFORE HE shadowed wide receivers, Gardner shadowed his big brother, Allante. Despite a six-year age difference, the two were inseparable growing up. Even though there was an open room in their house, they decided to share the same bedroom.
Allante played football, so Sauce played football, following him into backyard games against the big kids. When Allante changed his uniform to No. 2, Sauce switched to No. 2. When Allante worked out with a trainer during his college offseasons — he was a running back/wide receiver at Saginaw Valley State and Lakeland University — Sauce tagged along.
“He was always right next to me,” said Allante, who knew there was something special about Sauce when he learned at the age of 5 to ride a bike with no training or training wheels.
Gardner was always fearless, according to Allante, who said his kid brother once broke his arm doing a backflip off a fence. He said they both acquired their work ethic from their mother, Alisa, a single mom who worked two jobs to support them. If one of them wanted to attend a football camp, she worked overtime to pay the fees.
Gardner said one memory of living at the corner of Rowe Street and Seven Mile East made an impact. When he was 14, he saw a man fatally shot outside a liquor store. Out of fear, he didn’t tell anyone.
“It just made me come to the realization that you can’t take anything for granted,” Gardner said. “Me just witnessing that, I was like, ‘Dang.’ I just had to make sure I was locked in on everything — football, school, all that — because I knew ultimately where I wanted to go.”
Whatever direction Gardner goes, Allante is there with him — even if it’s not physically. Allante, who still lives in Detroit, is a vice president at Vayner Sports — the company that represents his brother. Sounding like an agent, but speaking as a blood relative, Allante believes Gardner has the potential to be “a once-in-a-lifetime player.”
Cornerbacks are often evaluated based on their interception total. That calculus can’t be applied to Gardner, who has as many Pro Bowls on his résumé as career picks (two).
In an ESPN survey of nearly 80 NFL coaches, scouts and executives, one unnamed personnel evaluator called Gardner “one of the most overrated players in the league.” The same survey ranked him the third-best corner, behind the Denver Broncos‘ Pat Surtain II and the Cleveland Browns‘ Denzel Ward.
Former star Richard Sherman, a three-time All-Pro cornerback, believes Gardner has benefitted from geography.
“Obviously, being in the New York market helps,” Sherman, a Prime Video analyst, said on a conference call with reporters. “It helped [Darrelle] Revis, it helps Sauce. … He’s incredibly worthy [of his accolades]. He has been named first-team All-Pro. It’s not because he hasn’t played well, but it definitely helps playing in that New York market and getting that focus on you and then playing well while you’ve got that focus.”
For his money, Sherman said Surtain is the best all-around corner in the sport, adding, “If he was in a big market, if he was playing for the Dallas Cowboys, I don’t think there would be any debate because people would be watching him all the time.”
WHEN TOLD OF Sherman’s comments, Gardner shrugged. He agreed to a certain extent, saying he does profit from playing in New York. But he said that it’s a double-edged sword: More eyes on you means more pressure. Even Sherman acknowledged, “New York can chew you up and spit you out the same way it can raise your game.” Gardner added, “A lot of times, there’s no in-between.”
Gardner welcomes the scrutiny. Asked if he’s the best corner, he said simply, “I try to do it as if I’m the best.”
Former cornerback Jason McCourty, who played 13 years, had initial questions about Gardner despite his lofty draft pedigree — fourth overall in 2022. Those questions didn’t last long.
“Even coming in, I’m wondering how he’s going to do it, covering these guys man-to-man, coming from [the University of] Cincinnati — and he’s just been awesome,” said McCourty, now an ESPN analyst, in a phone interview. “To step into the NFL and to be able to cover some of the best wide receivers, to be an All-Pro and to hit the ground running is just completely elite.”
But what about the lack of interceptions? McCourty said it shouldn’t be a barometer, that Gardner’s ability to neutralize wide receivers trumps his low interception total.
Sherman believes the game has changed. Gone are the days, he said, when corners such as Deion Sanders and Champ Bailey made the Pro Football Hall of Fame with gaudy interception totals — 53 and 52, respectively. In 2023, Revis, the former Jets star, was elected on the first ballot with 29.
“I do think interceptions are important, but I guess, in this day and age, [people] don’t because there’s just not a lot of guys getting them,” said Sherman, who made 37 in his career.
While the interception total may not be eye-popping, Gardner is a pass-breakup machine. His career total of 33 is the third most among corners since he entered the league. If he’s getting close enough to defend passes, in theory, he should be catching some of them.
He knows this; he doesn’t shy away from it. Asked his goals for 2024, he said, “Get more picks and keep grinding for that Defensive Player of the Year [award].” He wants at least four or five interceptions.
Gardner spends time after practice on every-day drills, including catching balls from a Jugs machine. His coaches love his work ethic. As cornerbacks coach Tony Oden likes to say, “Just when you think you’ve arrived as a player … bad things start to happen.”
Whenever coach Robert Saleh is asked about ways in which Gardner can improve, he usually responds: Intercept the ball more often. Oden, always pushing his protégé, said “there’s more meat on the bone.”
Perhaps, but his career is off to a historic start. He has pitched a league-high six shutouts since 2022 — games in which he allowed zero receptions as the nearest defender with a minimum of 20 coverage snaps, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.
Gardner received the All-Pro nod with a zero-interception performance last season. For a corner, that hadn’t occurred since 2010, when Revis and Nnamdi Asomugha both did it.
Uncommonly tall for a corner at 6-foot-3, with 33½-inch arms, Gardner makes it difficult for receivers to escape his clutches. His size and physicality allow him to jam bigger receivers at the line of scrimmage, according to McCourty. What really impresses McCourty is how Gardner can stick to smaller, quicker receivers at the top of their routes. These skills, he believes, could make him one of the best corners of this era.
“When you have a longer guy, a taller guy that can run, it’s kind of tough for a receiver,” Tennessee Titans receiver Tyler Boyd said. “It’s tough to just run away from the guy, knowing how long and athletic he is. But don’t get me wrong, he’s beatable. Every DB in this league is beatable.”
The Titans proved that Sunday, beating Gardner on a 40-yard touchdown pass to Calvin Ridley. The coverage was tight, but quarterback Will Levis dropped the pass between Gardner and safety Chuck Clark. All told, Gardner allowed five catches for 97 yards when targeted, his most yards allowed as the nearest defender in his career, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.
It was an uncharacteristic day for Gardner, who rarely surrenders chunk plays. Afterward, in the locker room, he was shaking his head. “I still don’t know how he caught that,” he said.
IN THE SEASON-OPENING loss to the San Francisco 49ers, Gardner recognized a gadget play was coming.
On a third-and-5 from the Jets’ 29, he alerted teammates to watch for a reverse. Linebacker C.J. Mosley heard him before the snap, adjusted and helped trap wide receiver Deebo Samuel in the backfield. Mosley credited Gardner, calling him one of the smartest players on defense.
“He’s become a real student of the game,” Mosley said. “He’s a lot more vocal than he was as a rookie.”
Gardner made the tackle and was credited with his first career sack because of Samuel’s intention to throw a pass.
“He’s a film junkie,” Allante said.
Allante said Gardner watches about an hour of game film every night in his home theater, learning opponents’ tendencies and critiquing his own performance. He described it as a singular focus, saying his brother possessed it at an early age.
“He’s a different guy,” Allante said. “He don’t drink, he don’t smoke, he don’t party.”
Outside of football, Gardner plays video games — he’s an accomplished gamer — and hones his golf swing in his home simulator. Golf is a new passion. He proudly declares that he broke 90 for the first time before training camp.
Life is good for Gardner. Business is booming.
The price for Gardner will increase in the coming years, perhaps next year, when he’s eligible for a contract extension. The ceiling on the cornerback market was raised recently, when Jalen Ramsey ($24.1 million per year) and Surtain ($24 million) signed extensions. With another good year, Gardner could leapfrog both to become the highest-paid corner.
Gardner received a phone alert when Ramsey’s deal was completed, saying his first thought was: “Dang, Pat wasn’t even the highest-paid corner for a day.”
He applauded the contracts, noting that corners finally are closing the gap with the highest-paid receivers, but said he’s not looking ahead to his potential blockbuster deal.
Gardner’s job as a corner is to make those receivers seem invisible. He’s also had a knack for making quarterbacks shy away from him. In two games, he has been targeted only eight times as the nearest defender, having allowed five receptions for 97 yards.
In the offseason, he asked the coaches to give him the added responsibility of covering the opponents’ No. 1 receiver. Philosophically, the Jets’ staff is opposed to doing that on an every-down basis, citing scheme and personnel considerations, but they’re giving him a taste of it.
In the opener, Gardner traveled with Brandon Aiyuk for a handful of plays and allowed no catches. In Week 2, despite the long touchdown to Ridley, Gardner was given a huge responsibility with the game on the line. In the final minute, with the Titans in the red zone, down by a touchdown, Gardner shadowed DeAndre Hopkins on four straight pass plays. Levis avoided that matchup. The result: Three incomplete passes, a sack and a 24-17 victory for the Jets (1-1).
“We have a special talent in No. 1,” defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich said, “and Sauce can do some things that are so unique and special.”
Gardner welcomes the challenge. He doesn’t mind playing on an island, the same way Revis did back in the day. Given his dislike for vacations, it might be the only island he enjoys.