The Indianapolis Colts and New York Jets sent shockwaves through the NFL world on Tuesday when they agreed on a deal that would send two-time All-Pro Sauce Gardner to the Colts in exchange for two first-round picks and AD Mitchell. The Colts are obviously in it to win it this year, but I’m not sure it was the right move for the Colts.

Are the Colts one of the best teams in the NFL? Absolutely.

But I still have a lot of questions about whether or not they can really win the Super Bowl in the near future. Here are some reasons I believe this move could prove costly for Indy.

Daniel Jones still scares me

I’ll admit that Daniel Jones has completely exceeded my expectations and more this season. He’s playing the best football of his career at the moment, but I’m still just worried that he won’t be able to keep it up for the entire season.

We saw how much he struggled when the Pittsburgh Steelers took away the run game, and once the weather gets colder and the defenses get tougher, he’s going to have to win some games by himself. I’m not sure he can do that, especially on the road against Kansas City and in two divisional games against the Texans.

When the run game is working – and it is almost all of the time – and he can work off play action and have a clean pocket, he’s a very good quarterback. The Steelers took that away last week, though, and he threw for 342 yards and a touchdown, but tossed three interceptions and lost two fumbles. He showcased glimpses of the inconsistent play that plagued his time in the Big Apple, and that worries me a lot.

Just look at Jones’ stats in games against teams above .500 compared to teams below .500.

The passing yards are there against good teams, but everything else isn’t. He’s completing 10 percent less of his attempts and has a 1:1 TD-INT ratio against teams above .500 compared to a 9:1 against teams below .500.

I’m not saying he can’t iron out some of those issues once the playoffs roll around, but they’re betting a lot on a guy who really struggles against good teams.

Can the Colts really hang with the premier AFC teams?

The Colts have proven they can hang around with some pretty good teams this year. They’ve beaten the Denver Broncos (while they were still struggling early in the year) and the Los Angeles Chargers. However, they lost by seven to the Los Angeles Rams, the only team they’ve played that I think has a real shot of making the Super Bowl.

We’ll really see if they can hang around with the premier AFC teams in a couple of weeks when they hit the road and travel to Kansas City. The Chiefs may be 5-4, but they’re as dangerous as anyone in the AFC. A win at Arrowhead would be a statement, and it would make me eat my words, but it’s going to be really tough to come out with a W there.

Outside of that game, the only other “elite” team they face all year is the Seattle Seahawks, who occupy the top spot in our power rankings right now. That will be another tough road game that will tell us a lot about this team.

If they can go 1-1 in those games, I’ll take back a lot of what I’m saying here. It would prove they can hang with the best of the best, but if they go 0-2, I’m going to be very concerned about what they gave up to acquire Gardner.

It’s going to be very hard to improve their roster if they don’t win now

The NFL Draft is by far the best way to upgrade your roster. Yes, every now and then, you can land a superstar in free agency, but you’re typically shelling out over $100-million to do so. Everyone would rather draft a superstar, get him on a team-friendly four-year deal, which really turns into five years with the fifth-year option. Now, the Colts don’t have that luxury.

If they win it all this year, it won’t matter, but that’s going to be tough. Even if Daniel Jones balls out and leads the Colts to 30 points per game in the playoffs, I’m not sure this defense is good enough to win the Super Bowl. They’re not horrible, but their deficiencies have been masked by their offensive success. They’re giving up 26.5 points per game to teams above .500 this season, and when you have to face Buffalo or Kansas City in the playoffs, that isn’t going to cut it.

So, if the Colts don’t win it all this year, they’ll need to reload their defense and possibly even add a receiver to complement Michael Pittman, especially considering the fact that they shipped AD Mitchell to the Jets for Gardner. That now becomes much harder to do without first-round picks in 2026 and 2027, so they’ll either have to hit on their late draft picks or shell out a bunch of cash for a star in free agency.

Why trading for Gardner could be worth it

As always, when you’re making an argument for something, you have to talk about the other side as well. So let’s talk about why this could be the perfect move for the Colts.

If there’s one area the Colts were really hurting, it was at cornerback. They’ve been making calls for weeks now, feeling out the market and trying to find a lengthy, talented corner to bolster their defense. Nobody expected Sauce Gardner to be the guy they landed on, but now they have one of the best young corners in football on their team for the next 3.5 years.

Sauce is the definition of a lockdown corner. In 2025, he’s allowed 10 of his 22 targets to be caught (45.5 percent) for 170 yards and two touchdowns. He doesn’t have an interception, but he’s broken up five passes. That’s nearly a fourth of his targets that he’s broken up.

Gardner has the ability to completely take away one half of the field. Of the 73 corners who have played 200+ coverage snaps this season, Gardner has been targeted the sixth-fewest times. On top of that, the five guys above him have allowed a 61+ completion percentage when targeted. That’s 16 points higher than Gardner’s completion percentage allowed.

Like I said, he’s the definition of a lockdown cornerback, and he fills the biggest position of need on the team. You can argue that there wasn’t a single player in the NFL they could’ve added that would add more value to their defense outside of Pat Surtain.

But I still don’t believe it’ll be worth it

Despite all the positive things I just said, I still don’t believe the trade will pay off for the Colts.

I just have too many questions about Daniel Jones. He’s never really played in a “big game.” He went to the playoffs in 2022 with the Giants and played well in the Wild Card, but stunk it up in the Divisional Round, throwing for 135 yards and a pick. Outside of that, he has no playoff experience, and I’m supposed to think he can go toe-to-toe with Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson in the playoffs?

I put a ton of stock into who you have under center in January. No matter how good or bad a team is, an elite quarterback is going to make plays in the playoffs.

Daniel Jones is good, but I don’t believe he’s good enough to win a shootout in Buffalo against Josh Allen, or even a shootout at home against Patrick Mahomes, especially after these teams have an entire season of tape on this offense.

This feels eerily similar to Sam Darnold and the Vikings last year. They went 14-3, but when they got to the playoffs, they got ran out of town by the Rams. I think the Colts are a better overall team than Minnesota and should be able to advance past the Wild Card round, but even making the AFC Championship is going to be tough, much less the Super Bowl.

Their defense will be much better with Gardner on it, but I don’t believe it pushes them over the edge. Without first-round picks for the next two years, I don’t know if they can reload enough to get back.