New York Jets: Has Sauce Gardner Actually Been Bad?

When a team plays poorly, its fans tend to turn on even their best players. With that in mind, perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that many are criticizing New York Jets All Pro cornerback Sauce Gardner’s play in recent weeks.

But has the young cornerback actually been bad? Well, let’s check the stats to find out.

For starters, his raw counting stats aren’t bad considering how much he plays.

Despite that, his PFF is pretty bad, ranking 82nd in the league through Week 8. That’s a steep drop from the top 10 rankings we’ve become accustomed to seeing. Partly a result of some very poor grades in his tackling (41.8) and run defense (42.6), which are also backed up by some hard numbers.

But while his coverage rating is better, he’s still not great, with a 69.2 rating that ranks 46th in the league. Given that PFF bases its grades on tape using a structured grading system, this would mean that Gardner has played poorly on reps that didn’t lead to catches for one reason or another, such as a play where Gardner gets hit , but a quarterback throws the ball to another player.

Putting it all together, it looks like Sauce is still performing just fine from an output perspective and likely hasn’t been the reason the Jets have lost games. However, PFF’s evaluations of Gardner seem to line up with the eye test of many Jets fans, which could indicate that some positive regression is due in the coming weeks. Needless to say, none of this is what Jets fans were hoping for from their young, All Pro, lockdown cornerback in his third season.