The Indianapolis Colts are firmly in the mix to obtain the top seed in the AFC despite faltering to the Pittsburgh Steelers last week, which dropped the team to 7-2 ahead of a matchup with the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday in Berlin.
The Colts have the highest-scoring offense in the NFL at 32.2 points per game, but they decided ahead of the deadline that the defense needed a major boost, which prompted the front office to make a shocking deal for star cornerback Sauce Gardner of the New York Jets in exchange for Adonai Mitchell and a pair of first-round picks.
Gardner is still getting acclimated to his new surroundings and spoke with the media on Thursday morning to share his thoughts on the trade.
“I don’t want to go to a losing team. I want to win. This is a great situation. God just keeps blessing me in many ways, and my favorite color is blue, so it worked out perfectly,” Gardner said.
Sauce Gardner on being traded to the #Colts: pic.twitter.com/CLOJrxwsCh
— Kevin Bowen (@KBowen1070) November 6, 2025
Gardner will be reuniting with one of his former college teammates at Cincinnati, Alec Pierce, and the two of them can now have some more fun battles lining up across from one another in practice.
It was a hefty price to pay, but the Colts have opened a legitimate window for contention this season and now is the time to push the chips into the pot and go for it, especially since some of the other perennial AFC contenders such as the Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills, and Baltimore Ravens have all shown signs of not being quite the powerhouses they have been over the past five years or so.
It hurts to not have first-round picks in each of the next two years, but no Colts fans will be complaining if Gardner performs like the two-time All-Pro he is.
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