Most NFL cornerbacks would be satisfied with holding an explosive group of Bills receivers to five completed passes for 62 yards when he was targeted.
But Sauce Gardner isn’t most cornerbacks.
“Average,” Gardner graded his performance in the overtime win over the Bills after practice Friday.
“I know a lot of people would look it at like, he allowed 50, 60 yards on five plays, that means he locked up — I don’t look at it like that, I shouldn’t be allowing that many yards anyway,” Gardner said. “That’s my standard, I know a lot of people, a lot of corners in the league, that’s a good game. But my standard and the coaches’ standard for me is different, [for the] things that I want to accomplish, the legacy that I want to have, it’s gotta look different.”
Already a star in his second season, the 23-year-old Gardner said he believes both he and the Jets’ defense can be better than they were on Monday, when they held a high-powered Bills offense to just 16 points.
Gardner cited Bills receiver Stefon Diggs’ performance — the star wideout caught 10 passes for 102 yards and a touchdown — as a problem, telling reporters it didn’t match up to the high standard the secondary holds themselves to.
“He’s a tough critic,” head coach Robert Saleh said of Gardner. “I mean, if five receptions and [62] yards is a bad day, we’re doing OK. But that’s why that’s a bad day for him. And so the challenge for him is to stay deliberate, stay focused, treat everything like a championship, treat every rep like a championship moment and continue to find ways to get better.”
The challenge of facing a top-flight receiver won’t let up this Sunday, when CeeDee Lamb and the Cowboys will look to shellac another New York team after they suffocated the Giants last weekend for a 40-0 victory.
Gardner, whose performance Monday night graded out as his third-worst game in terms of receiving yards allowed, per Pro Football Reference, will get a chance to redeem himself as the Jets look to pull off an upset on Sunday afternoon.
Lamb caught just four passes for 77 yards in the Cowboys’ blowout win over the Giants, but he burned the Big Blue secondary for an explosive 49-yard play on Dallas’ first drive.
“He’s a top-five receiver in this league,” Gardner said on Friday. “It’s gonna be a huge challenge to our secondary. Also, they got Dak [Prescott], and Dak’s trust in him — we look forward to it.”
Following an exhilarating first year that earned Gardner the Defensive Rookie of the Year Award and set him up to become an anchor of the Jets’ defense for quite some time, expectations are sky-high for his sophomore season.
The defense is relying on Gardner, along with veteran cornerback D.J. Reed, to reestablish itself as one of the best units in the NFL again this season through stout work shutting down the league’s best receivers.
And after an Achilles tear sidelined Aaron Rodgers, there’s even more pressure on the defense to carry the load for a team that was gearing up to be a Super Bowl contender.
How is Gardner dealing with the loss of Rodgers, with whom he quickly developed a bond through training camp?
“You keep the main thing the main thing,” Gardner said. “We got Zach [Wilson], [he’s] got us looking extremely confident. A guy that can be a starter on this team and on any other team, so we trust in him, and he trusts in us, it’s a brotherhood. We love him. We’re gonna keep loving him. He’s gonna keep pushing us, we’re gonna keep pushing him.”
Gardner, meanwhile, doesn’t need much pushing.
If his outing Monday truly was one of his worst performances, the Jets are likely in pretty good shape.
“I think that he has such a high standard for himself as we all do,” defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich said Thursday. “He expects to make the game-changing plays every time he’s on the field, he expects to be the difference, he expects to be the reason we win and he played well and as we can always — all of us — can coach better, we can play better.”
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