The stabbing of NFL on Fox analyst Mark Sanchez is one of the most bizarre stories of the year. And the reporting by ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter appears to have created some serious confusion.
When news broke about Sanchez being stabbed in Indianapolis on Saturday, before calling the Indianapolis Colts-Las Vegas Raiders game, there was immediate concern over the incident. Many former teammates, colleagues, and individuals in the NFL and sports media world were shocked at the news and expressed their support for Sanchez.
However, after a few hours, the full story came into focus, and it was not what anyone had assumed. Sanchez was later arrested at the hospital for allegedly being the aggressor in the incident. He was then charged with multiple misdemeanors, as the probable cause affidavit states that he confronted a 69-year-old truck driver over parking his vehicle outside a hotel. Sanchez allegedly became belligerent, and the other man in the incident is said to have pepper-sprayed and then stabbed the former NFL quarterback, fearing that his life was in danger during the altercation.
With the facts in the case now making their way into public view, the role of ESPN insider Adam Schefter is now being questioned.
In the immediate aftermath of the incident, Schefter was one of the first to offer details about what happened. Less than an hour after TMZ reported that Sanchez was hospitalized after being stabbed, Schefter reported that he was “stabbed during a robbery in Indianapolis early Saturday morning.”
On Sunday afternoon, Schefter deleted the tweet, but it can still be seen below, along with the community note attached to it on X, which highlights the inaccurate information. We now know there was no robbery in any account of what transpired.
Schefter deleted the tweet on Sunday shortly after The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis called it out for still being live on social media with no correction aside from the X community note.
24 hours later, the “robbery” tweet is still up.
Does ESPN have a process to correct stuff like this? An executive who can make a call? Not clear, as we saw with McAfee a few months ago. https://t.co/iUOL9fRmXn
— Bryan Curtis (@bryancurtis) October 5, 2025
It was the third tweet from Schefter about the Sanchez incident. The first post, at 1:51 p.m. ET, referenced a Fox announcement about Sanchez, followed by a quote tweet with the statement itself a minute later. Then came the message about the robbery at 2:06 p.m. ET that has now been deleted.
After searching through social media and the web, Adam Schefter appears to be the first and only major reporter claiming that Sanchez was stabbed “during a robbery.” As we now know from police reports, the dispute between Sanchez and the truck driver began when Sanchez took issue over the parking of the vehicle before things turned violent. Sanchez was charged with battery, public intoxication, and unlawful entry of a motor vehicle for his role in the encounter.
Schefter has been as influential as almost anyone in sports media this century for his ability to report news within the NFL world. He has developed a massive following as a result. But in recent years, his reporting has fallen under scrutiny for misrepresenting things or getting them wrong on multiple occasions. And this appears to be an instance where major details have been misreported in a serious story outside the world of NFL transactions.
To this point, Adam Schefter has not offered a correction or explanation for where he obtained the information about the incident being a robbery or why he chose to publish or frame his post in the way he did. But an error of this magnitude certainly demands an answer of some kind.
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