Has Sauce Gardner actually been bad?

When a team plays badly then its fans tend to turn on even their best players. With that in mind, perhaps it should not be a surprise that many are criticizing the play of New York Jets All Pro cornerback Sauce Gardner in recent weeks.

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

To start, his raw counting stats are not bad given how much he plays.

Despite that, his PFF is rather poor as he ranks 82nd in the league through Week 8. That is a steep drop from the top 10 finishes that we’d grown accustomed to seeing. In part, this a result of some very poor grades in his tackling (41.8) and run defense (42.6), which are also backed by some hard numbers.

However, his coverage grade, while better, is still not stellar, with a score of 69.2 that ranks 46th in the league. Given that PFF bases its grades on the tape using a structured grading system, this would imply Gardner has played poorly on reps that did not lead to catches for one reason or another, such as a play where Gardner is beat but a quarterback throws the ball to another player.

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