Former NFL quarterback Mark Sanchez didn’t work for Fox in Week 5 because he’d been stabbed and hospitalized. Sanchez will also not work for Fox in Week 6.
Fox has announced the lineups for Sunday’s slate. Sanchez is not listed.
He may have had a week off anyway. Sanchez was part of the No. 6 team at the start of the season. With only five Fox games this weekend, one of the broadcast teams was going to be off.
Sanchez’s usual play-by-play partner, Adam Amin, will be working. He’ll replace Joe Davis on the No. 2 team with Greg Olsen, given that Davis is the primary Fox play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball.
Fox has said nothing about Sanchez’s employment status in the aftermath of Sanchez being charged with multiple crimes (including felony battery) in connection with the incident that resulted in his stabbing. As explained during a recent edition of #PFTPM, the fact that the victim, 69-year-old Perry Tole, has sued both Sanchez and Fox for injuries allegedly inflicted by Sanchez complicates the situation.
Fox will surely hope to have Sanchez’s cooperation in connection with the litigation. If Fox fires Sanchez, he’ll have no reason to play ball with Fox’s lawyers.
The two defendants will have very different objectives as to whether they have civil liability to Tole. For Sanchez, the argument will be (if any) that he didn’t do it or that he was acting in self-defense. For Fox, the case will focus on the question of whether reasonable care was exercised in the hiring, supervision, and retention of Sanchez.
Sanchez’s motivations could subtly sway his eventual testimony on key facts relevant to the question of whether Fox knew or should have known about a potential propensity by Sanchez to become intoxicated and instigate conflict. Or the question of whether Fox provided alcohol to Sanchez at a Fox-arranged (and/or Fox-funded) team-building event. Or the question of whether Fox should have arranged for Sanchez to get back to his hotel, given his apparent state of inebriation.
Whatever the specific issues, it’s always better for a company that has been sued to be aligned with the employee at the heart of the case. If Fox cuts Sanchez loose, he has no incentive to help the broader effort to protect the corporate balance sheet. (Indeed, he could become motivated to shift as much blame as possible to Fox, if he’s no longer collecting a Fox paycheck.)
Fox has said nothing about Sanchez’s employment status. There’s a chance Fox won’t. The real question is whether, on the next weekend for which Fox has six games, Sanchez will be in the booth — if, of course, he’s healthy enough to travel and to work.
