The surprising silver lining in the Jets’ Sauce Gardner trade

It has been an unbelievably eventful day for the New York Jets and their rabid fan base. While some fireworks were expected at the trade deadline, it was supposed to be names like Jermaine Johnson II and Breece Hall who left New York, not Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams.

Of course, there is still time before the deadline, and seemingly every player in the building is on the table to be traded by Darren Mougey. While the Jets now have three additional first-round picks in the next two years, there is no guarantee that they'll get a player of Williams or Gardner's caliber.

They did get known draft busts Mazi Smith and Adonai Mitchell back, but that is not even a consolation prize. The real silver lining comes in when inspecting the details of Gardner's contract and how it was surprisingly tradeable.

Jets' dead cap hits for Sauce Gardner aren't exactly debilitating

According to Spotrac, because New York restructured Gardner's offseason extension that they signed him to just a few months ago, the dead cap hits won't be as bad for the Jets as they look to re-tool their roster and move on.

"The Jets structured his offseason extension with a minimal signing bonus ($13.75M), backed up by future option bonuses in 2026/2027. Those options now transfer to the Colts, leaving behind just $19.75M of dead cap for the Jets to handle over this and next season."

Spotrac

$19.75 million is not exactly pocket change, but it is far less than Jets fans expected. The thought of losing Gardner as a player and his contract crippling the team all in one was too much to handle, but this is at least a minor silver lining.

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While there was certainly an argument for the Jets to blow things up and build for the future, it is difficult to imagine why they are blowing up their defense, of all things.

Mougey needs to hit on each of the draft picks he collected, turn Smith and Mitchell into solid contributors, and hope to bargain shop for good players in free agency if he wants to get the monkey off his back about this trade.

Gardner provided so many good memories for Jets fans that it is still hard to come to grips with the fact that he is gone. But at least he won't leave an insane amount of dead cap space in his wake.