In 1968, he started and caught eight passes for the Jets in the third AFL-NFL World Championship Game, helping defeat the NFL's heavily favored Baltimore Colts.

Sauer retired at the peak of his career following the 1970 NFL season because he considered professional football dehumanizing.

[2] In a 1971 interview with the Institute for the Study of Sport and Society, Sauer said, "When you get to the college and professional levels, the coaches still treat you as an adolescent.

As of 1994, the same year as his father's death, Sauer was a textbook graphics specialist living in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

He died on May 7, 2013, in Westerville, Ohio, of congestive heart failure, having suffered from Alzheimer's disease.