Sauce Gardner thrilled that Jets' offense should be a big contributor this season

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Sauce Gardner still believes he is part of a defense that can carry the Jets to a championship.

This year is a little different from his first two seasons, though. This year he hopes it won’t have to.

With Aaron Rodgers presumably healthy and the team’s offense able to score points, grind out drives and maybe even hand over a late lead or two, the blueprint for winning has changed. Rather than feel as if they need to pitch shutouts — and there were plenty of times in recent years when that literally was true — the defense is very happy to share the onus of achieving the lofty goals.

“They’ve been trying to say we’re an offensive organization now,” Gardner, an All-Pro cornerback, said with amusement at the chirping that he has heard from Rodgers and others since the start of training camp. “Shoot, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard them on the offense say that . . . So it’s like ‘great!’ As a defense, you are like, ‘Oh, wow, we’re glad to hear that!’ ”

Linebacker C.J. Mosley has heard that talk too.

“Hey, that’s fine with me,” he said with a big grin. “As long as we win the games, we can be whatever [Rodgers] wants us to be. Sounds good to me.”

Even coach Robert Saleh, who comes from a defensive background, is more than happy to cede the identifying trait of the team.

“The trick has been offense and trying to get guys that buy into what we’re trying to do day in and day out,” he said of the recent past. “Like I’ve said, I’m really excited about the group we have. If we can keep this quarterback upright, we’re going to win a lot of football games.”

Having that responsibility lifted from them should make a defense that ranked third in 2023 and fifth in 2022 in yards allowed even better. At the very least, it will leave them with more time to rest during games and not have their snap counts accumulate throughout the year because of a steady offensive output of three-and-outs and turnovers.

“As a DB, you don’t mind being on the field,” Gardner said, “but it is a little different when you keep going to the sideline and you are right back on the field all the time.”

No one really knows how good this Jets offense can be; we haven’t seen it at full strength other than the four plays before Rodgers tore his left Achilles tendon in last year’s opener. But the Jets’ defense has been going against the offense since late July and has a better idea than most regarding its abilities.

“I’m looking forward to just watching them dominate and then us going on the field to dominate and them watching us do it,” Gardner said. “It’s a big difference. I can’t wait to see everything unfold and see what we all know they are capable of doing.”

The only Jets culture that Gardner (and Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall and others, for that matter) has known is one in which one side of the ball — and let’s be honest, it’s usually been the offensive side — is blamed for the losing. The players have mostly managed to avoid that kind of in-house finger-pointing, but it’s been hard to deny the reality.

Now the Jets could be on the verge of having their two units bickering over who is more responsible for them winning.

Refreshing as that may be, Gardner doesn’t think it will be much of an argument.

“No, this is still going to continue to be a defensive-driven program,” he said confidently. “But the fact that they can say that too, and rightfully so, that’s great.”

 Notes & quotes: OL Wes Schweitzer was placed on injured reserve with a hand injury he suffered earlier in the week, forcing him to miss Monday’s opener and at least the three games after it. Schweitzer is the primary backup on the interior of the line. Saleh would not say who will move up on that depth chart but noted, “We have a lot of options.” . . . LB Zaire Barnes (ankle) also was ruled out for Monday. No other Jets have an injury status for the game.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.