Sauce Gardner isn’t asking out of Indianapolis. If anything, the Colts cornerback says he’s prepared to stick around and absorb whatever comes next.
A week short of his one-year mark with the team, Gardner was asked Wednesday whether he was ready to see this through after the Colts tore into the roster around him. His answer was simple: “For sure,” he said. “Nothing’s going to be perfect.
“I’m an optimistic thinker, so I just think when you go through a lot of bad things, good things can happen when you still stay down, stay level-headed and stay humble through it all so you can sustain that success, opposed to starting off when you have all this success, and then you don’t know what it feels like to go through some ups and downs.”
The timing of the question mattered. Less than 24 hours earlier, the Colts had dealt guard Quenton Nelson and defensive tackle DeForest Buckner, the franchise’s two longest-tenured pillars, as new principal team owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon moved to kick off a full rebuild eight days after longtime general manager Chris Ballard was fired.
Gardner admitted the news hit hard.
“Those are two guys who embodied everything we stand for as an organization, so it’s just one of those things where it hurt, for sure,” Gardner said. “That’s two captains, two great players and great people. It’s definitely a little crazy for sure.”
Gardner arrived in Indianapolis as the kind of player a team imagines as its final missing piece. Ballard paid a massive price for him, sending the Colts’ next two first-round picks, in 2026 and 2027, along with young receiver Adonai Mitchell to the Jets.
The reward was a corner who had already stacked up a decorated start to his career: AP Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2022, AP first-team All-Pro in each of his first two seasons, and the league leader in passes defended as a rookie with 20. At 6-foot-3 with rare length, Gardner had already built a reputation as one of the NFL’s most feared defensive backs.
But the football landscape around him has changed fast.
In the summer of 2025, the Jets made Gardner the highest-paid cornerback in NFL history, then more than three months later shipped him out as part of a broad organizational sell-off aimed at stockpiling picks for another rebuild. He first landed in Indianapolis with plenty of momentum behind the Colts, joining a team that had just beaten Berlin’s eighth win of the season and flown home from the private plane ride across the Atlantic into a celebratory bye week sitting atop the AFC.
Since then, the picture has gone the other way. In the 14 games after that trip, Gardner has appeared in nine and finished just six. Over the 15 games since he joined the roster, the Colts have won three times.
And while Gardner has broken up seven passes in Indianapolis, he has not intercepted a pass. More than that, he’s watched the Colts’ postseason hopes as an AFC dark horse fade away completely.
There was more uncertainty on Wednesday, too. Shane Steichen would not confirm whether Nelson or Buckner had asked to be traded before the deals were made, and ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported that fourth-year receiver Josh Downs had also requested a trade.
Even with that noise swirling, Gardner said he’s not planning to fold on Indianapolis. He said the changes are different from what he saw when he first got there, but he’s leaning into the chaos rather than running from it.
“It’s definitely tough. Like you said, it’s different than when I first got here, but you know, we’re all battle-tested, and I’m a man of faith,” he said.
“It’s one of those things where everything happens for a reason, and God’s going to put me in certain positions for a reason. We’re going to overcome this thing.”
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