New York Jets: Has Sauce Gardner Actually Been Bad?

When a team plays poorly, the fans tend to turn against even their best players. With that in mind, it may not come as a surprise that many have criticized the play of New York Jets All Pro cornerback Sauce Gardner in recent weeks.

But has the young cornerback actually been bad? Let’s take a look at the stats to find out.

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

Despite this, his PFF is quite poor, as he ranks 82nd in the league through Week 8. That’s a steep drop from the top 10 places we had become accustomed to. In part, this is due to some very poor numbers in his tackling (41.8) and run defense (42.6), which are also backed up by some hard numbers.

His coverage grade, while better, is 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 imply that Gardner has played poorly on replays that for some reason did not result in catches, such as a play where Gardner is beaten but a quarterback throws the ball. to another player.

All things considered, it appears that Sauce is still performing well from an output perspective and likely hasn’t been the reason the Jets have been losing games. However, PFF’s evaluations of Gardner seem to match the eye test of many Jets fans, which could indicate some positive regression to be expected in the coming weeks. Needless to say, this isn’t what Jets fans were hoping for from their young, All Pro, lockdown cornerback in his third season.