It’s been a while since Deadspin published its “Is that all there is?” story about Mark Sanchez and his reported relationship with a 17-year-old girl.
Sanchez has mostly stayed out of the spotlight since, first speaking about the incident in a radio appearance Friday.
“I’m playing in New York. One of the biggest cities in the country and you’re going to get scrutiny on-and-off the field, no matter what you do. You know you just gotta be smart about who you hang out with and it’s not even worth talking about at this point anymore,” Sanchez told Petros and Money on Fox Sports Radio via SportsRadioInterviews.com
“I mean people embellish stories, fabricate stories, to try to drive traffic to their website, to try and get people to start talking about their publication,” Sanchez said. “It didn’t bother me. It was just too bad that somebody had to go do stuff like that, but it’s a probably a great lesson about playing in New York and being in the spotlight.”
(That lesson, possibly: don’t let women take pictures of the walls in your bedroom.) Sanchez didn’t seem too bothered by the attention, and understands it comes with the territory.
“It’s totally worth it to be where I’m at and get all the perks of playing in the NFL,” Sanchez said. “If that’s one of the downsides I can live with it.”
Sanchez also recounted a story from his recent visit to USC. On his way to a panel discussion there, he got stuck in elevator for more than an hour with agent Leigh Steinberg, former Bears receiver Willie Gault, and a few other people before the fire department saved them.
That sounds like a setup to a joke, but we can’t think of the punchline.
