Sauce Gardner lost a handful of games to a calf injury last season.
The two-time All-Pro cornerback hasn't lost any of his confidence and swagger, though.
As the 2026 NFL Draft is set to kick off in Pittsburgh on Thursday night, Gardner's Indianapolis Colts are scheduled to be on the clock until Friday in the second round. Indy sent its first-rounder this year and the next to the New York Jets last season to acquire Gardner.
Despite his injury-dampened debut with the Colts, Gardner feels no added pressure ahead of his club's first-round-less Thursday.
"I'm the first-round pick -- I'm the first-round pick two times," Gardner said this week, via the . "We're gonna get our money. We're gonna do our thing on defense, especially, but the whole team is gonna do our thing. There's no pressure."
Selected fourth overall in the 2022 NFL Draft by the Jets, Gardner was an instant success story, winning AP NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year and earning All-Pro and Pro Bowl selection in each of his first two seasons.
Having garnered a massive second contract on a rebuilding Gang Green club, Gardner was shipped to the Colts last season for a massive haul of two first-rounders.
He played just three games for the Colts before his calf troubled him, returned for Week 17 and aggravated it. Gardner has a stunning explanation for the injury: Karma. But nothing to do with anything controversial or incendiary.
"When it happened, there was something I did that I shouldn't have did," Gardner said. "Not a huge deal, but I had just picked up a phone call I shouldn't have picked up, and then the next day that happened. I'm dead serious, that is truly I feel why I got injured. I picked up a phone call I shouldn't have answered. It was unfortunate, but I know how I've gotta live and the decisions I've got to make now."
Cryptic and confusing as the CB's sorta explanation is, most important for Colts fans is that Gardner said he's all good to go now.
"I'm definitely fully healthy," he said.
In body and spirit, it would seem, which bodes well for Indy as one of the NFL's elite cornerbacks, regardless of what happens Thursday, could well prove his worth in the Sundays to come.
