Mark Sanchez agreed to plead guilty in connection with an October 2025 physical altercation in downtown Indianapolis, according to multiple reports.
The state and Sanchez’s legal team filed a joint motion in Marion County Superior Court 21 on Thursday. They requested the judge vacate the upcoming Sept. 8 jury trial and “set this matter for a guilty plea and sentencing hearing.”
It is unclear what charges Sanchez is pleading guilty to, and a judge still needs to accept Sanchez’s guilty plea.
The former NFL quarterback and former Fox Sports analyst faced charges of battery causing serious injury, unauthorized entry of a motor vehicle and public intoxication.
Sanchez was in town to call a Raiders-Colts game on Oct. 5, when he got into a back alley fight with Perry Tole, a 69-year-old truck driver. Tolle was in the alley between two hotels collecting used cooking oil as part of his job.
Sanchez was hospitalized with several stab wounds in his upper torso, and Tole had deep cuts on his face.
Tole said he stabbed Sanchez in self-defense, and he was not charged. Sanchez told police he remembered nothing.
Sanchez’s trial was continued five times before Thursday’s plea agreement.
Tole has a civil lawsuit pending against Sanchez, Fox and the company that owns St. Elmo’s.
Colts Clips
Colts wide receiver Keenan Allen met with the media on Thursday for the first time since he was arrested early on Sunday morning.
Allen faces misdemeanor charges of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated (OVWI) and OVWI endangering a person after police found Allen showing signs of intoxication when they approached him in a car parked in a no parking area. He was released from jail later in the day and said on Thursday that his mind is on being “a good football player and ready for the season.”
“Because it’s an ongoing legal matter, we’re not going to discuss it,” Allen said, via WISH. “Like I said, just focused on football and being a good teammate.”
The Colts have said Allen will play Week 1 and that any team-issued discipline will be kept in-house. NFL discipline could come at a later date.
The Ravens welcomed wide receiver Zay Flowers back to the practice field on Thursday.
Flowers was out of practice for the last two weeks with an undisclosed injury and head coach Jesse Minter said that the team’s focus was on making sure he’s ready for Week 1 of the regular season. The Ravens play a little over a week from now and Flowers’s presence at practice is a good sign that he’ll be ready to go against the Colts.
Flowers also missed time with a quad contusion earlier in August and he signed a four-year extension to kick off the month.
The Ravens say wideout Devontez Walker was the only player out of practice on Thursday.
Anthony Richardson was named the Colts’ No. 2 quarterback today, and while that’s a far cry from what he was expected to be when the Colts made him the fourth overall pick in the 2023 NFL draft, it’s a role Richardson said he’s happy to have.
Richardson, who beat out Riley Leonard in the competition to back up Daniel Jones, told reporters that he considers it an honor that coach Shane Steichen thinks he’s the right man for the No. 2 job.
“I was honored,” Richardson said. “I’m just blessed to continue to find a way to lead, continue to find my way on the roster. I’m just thankful they believe in me enough to promote me to QB2. I’m just ready to work and I’m willing to work with the team and provide my best self for this squad and help us win.”
As he heads into the fourth and final season of his rookie contract, Richardson has started just 15 games, completed 50.6 percent of his passes, and thrown 11 touchdown passes and 13 interceptions. He’s nowhere near the player the Colts hoped he would be when they drafted him, but he’s trying to see the positive in being second string instead of third string.
The Colts have decided on a backup quarterback.
Head coach Shane Steichen announced on Thursday that Anthony Richardson will be the No. 2 quarterback behind Daniel Jones on the team’s depth chart for the start of the regular season. Riley Leonard competed with Richardson this summer and will be third in the pecking order in Indianapolis.
Richardson was set to be the team’s quarterback of the future when they drafted him fourth overall in 2023, but injuries and inconsistent play led the team to bring in Jones before last season and Richardson fell short in a competition for the starting job. Jones’s torn Achilles last year could have given him another chance to start, but Richardson was out with an eye injury and did not play at all after Week 5.
Jones’s health and performance will determine whether Richardson gets another shot to lead the Colts’ offense in the final year of his rookie deal.
The No. 13 has been in the news lately, with veteran receivers hoping to wear it with their new teams. For Odell Beckham Jr.'s return to New York, he got lucky. For Colts receiver Keenan Allen, the message was “better luck next time.”
Colts receiver Laquon Treadwell told reporters on Wednesday that he won’t be surrendering the number to Allen, who will instead wear No. 10.
“I told him, ‘I respect the game. I know what you did in the number,’” Treadwell said, via James Boyd of The Athletic. “Me and my family, we did a lot of praying about it as well. So, he was cool with me keeping the number.”
In 13 NFL seasons with the Chargers and Bears, Allen has always worn No. 13. His fourteenth season will mark the first time he’ll wear a different number.
Should that matter? No. But plenty of players develop a personal attachment to the device used to depersonalize them — the reduction of their identity to a one- or two-digit number. For many, that number then becomes a huge part of their identity.
It’s not entirely clear why Treadwell feels compelled to keep the number. He wore 11, 80, 82, 18, 17, and 7 from 2016 through 2024, before landing in 13 last year. In that number, Laquon appeared in 10 games with no catches on no targets.
As the chaos continues over whether certain players released by NFL teams can return to college football, various NFL figures have been asked for their views on the situation.
During a Tuesday press conference, Colts G.M. Chris Ballard said his team was approached by no rookies asking to be waived so that they could pursue a fifth season at the college level.
Ballard added this regarding the phenomenon, via Nathan Brown of the Indianapolis Star: “That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.”
He’s far from alone in that opinion. It is a ridiculous outcome. But it’s a direct result of NCAA mismanagement, flowing from the implosion of decades of antitrust violations.
The powers-that-be in college football are banking on sentiments like “that’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard” creating sufficient momentum to turn the Protect College Sports Act into law — giving the system the antitrust exemption is badly wants while also limiting the freedom and earning capacity of the players.
Back in February, Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson requested a trade.
When nothing materialized, Richardson reported to the offseason program and has been competing to be the team’s backup behind Daniel Jones with Riley Leonard.
Richardson’s feelings may or may not have changed. But at this point, the Colts do not intend to trade him.
“He is going to be an Indianapolis Colt this year,” General Manager Chris Ballard said in his Tuesday press conference.
Richardson, 24, has continued to make strides in his development, Ballard said.
“We forget how young he is sometimes. Really proud of his growth,” Ballard said. “ There were two times in camp where I thought, OK, he’s starting to really show some poise. So the two-minute against New England, we’re backed up, I think it was 38 seconds left on the clock. Gets us in field-goal range to give us a chance to get points. And then during the Atlanta scrimmage, he had a tremendous two-minute [drive] also.
“So, it’s been fun to watch Anthony’s growth.”
Ballard did not declare whether or not Richardson, the No. 4 overall pick of the 2023 draft. will serve as the backup, deferring to head coach Shane Steichen. But when it comes to Richardson’s status with the team at large, Steichen said the quarterback is “in a good spot.”
“He’s a phenomenal teammate — and I don’t use that word lightly,” Ballard said. “Like, he is a great teammate. He likes to be around the team. He likes being part of the team. There’s never been a point — even going back into last year when he didn’t win the job — there’s not been one point where I’ve seen him hang his head and get salty. He’s a phenomenal teammate.”
Wide receiver Keenan Allen remains a member of the Colts after being arrested for operating a vehicle while intoxicated over the weekend and it doesn’t appear that’s going to change in the coming days.
General Manager Chris Ballard said at a Tuesday press conference that Allen will be in the team’s lineup for their Week 1 game against the Ravens. He also said Allen’s history in the NFL shows no sign of this being an issue that changes how the team feels about him.
“I’m not going to comment on what happened,” Ballard said. “What I’m gonna tell you is good people make mistakes. He’s a tremendous human being, give him some grace and he’ll work through the process of the legal system.”
Ballard said that any discipline from the team will be handled in-house. Allen will also be subject to league discipline under the Personal Conduct Policy.
The Raiders had the top waiver priority over the weekend and used it to pick up cornerback Darrell Luter.
It turns out they were far from the only team interested in the former 49er.
Per Field Yates of ESPN, the Titans, Dolphins, Cowboys, and Colts also put in a claim for Luter. But because the Raiders were first in line, they were the team to get him.
Yates notes no other player had more than two teams put in a claim for him.
A fifth-round pick in 2023, Luter has appeared in 27 games with three starts over the last three seasons. In 2025, he appeared in all 17 games with three starts, recording 28 total tackles with one pass defensed and one fumble recovery.
