Lil Baby shows up to Sauce Gardner’s dinner with New York Jets teammates

The NFL rookie dinner with the colossal bill has become an honored tradition. There’s drinking, there’s feasting, and at the end of it, the rookies pick up the bill.

Monday night marked Sauce Gardner’s rookie dinner, and let’s just say the New York Jets veterans spared no expenses for the young superstar.

The receipt, posted to Justin Hardee’s Instagram story, displays some of the astronomical charges. Cost of food: $12,433. A bottle of Caymus cabernet sauvignon: $250. Three bottles of Don Julio 1942 tequila: $3,000.

Total bill with tip: $19,873.

For us normal folk, that’s something like a brand new car — and a pretty nice one at that. And make no mistake, $20k is still a lot of money for a 22-year-old rookie, but that’s the point of the rookie dinner.

It is worth noting that Gardner seems to have been able to talk the final price down to about $8,000 — less than half the original. He also insinuated the restaurant had been trying to overcharge him, but didn’t seem too upset by it, judging by his Twitter.

As is standard with Gardner, there had to be something about his rookie dinner that helped it stand out. That came in his surprise guest, rapper Lil Baby.

Talking the price down to less than half of what you originally owed? A surprise appearance from one of the most popular artists in the world? It sounds as though Sauce Gardner’s rookie dinner, like his rookie year itself, was truly one of one.

Ian Roddy is on Twitter @IanRoddy_