INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Quenton Nelson made an All-Pro impact right from the start for the Indianapolis Colts.
The defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks think he can do the same thing for their struggling ground game.
One week after team co-owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon fired general manager Chris Ballard, who drafted Nelson with the No. 6 overall pick in 2018, Nelson was dealt to the Seahawks for two draft picks — the first of two trades Tuesday. Indy received a 2027 third-rounder and a 2028 fifth-rounder for Nelson.
A few hours later, the Colts sent Pro Bowl defensive tackle DeForest Buckner to San Francisco, a person with knowledge of the deal confirmed to The Associated Press. The person requested anonymity because the teams had not yet announced the trade. Indy will receive a 2027 fourth-round pick.
While the timing may come as a surprise, Irsay-Gordon telegraphed this was a possibility in her statement last week.
“As I said at the start of the season, the sense of urgency has never been higher. Our standard is to compete for championships, and I believe a change in leadership is necessary to meet that standard," she said. "Making this change during the season was a deliberate decision. Waiting would only delay the important work that needs to begin now.”
Nelson, the league's third-highest paid guard, had been a stalwart on the offensive line for nearly a decade in Indy. But his contract expires after the season, and Nelson has been reluctant to discuss his future plans following the Ballard move.
“I just feel like everyone came to work and are doing their best,” Nelson said after Indy lost its third straight last weekend, 16-10 at Minnesota. “I don’t know what else to say.”
Indy was willing to trade Nelson because it wants more draft capital to make up for the loss of 2026 and 2027 first-round picks that were sent to the New York Jets last November to acquire All-Pro cornerback Sauce Gardner.
Buckner was next. He, too, has an expiring contract and had expressed his displeasure with what's happened after each of Indy's past two losses.
“How about you guess?” Buckner said in Minnesota when asked about his level of his frustration. “Yeah, I’m frustrated. Same thing: We lost.”
Now he's back with the franchise where he started his career. This season, his seventh with Indy, he has 31 tackles and four sacks. He finishes his Colts tenure with 420 tackles and 47 sacks. Buckner had 263 tackles and 28 1/2 sacks in four seasons with the 49ers before he was acquired in a 2020 trade.
Could there be more wheeling and dealing?
While Jonathan Taylor signed a two-year contract extension worth $44 million in August and is tied for the league lead in TD runs (eight) and is fifth in yards rushing (587), he could be sought after on the trade market.
The Colts' season is spiraling with 12 losses in 14 games going back to last season with a Sunday matchup in Jacksonville (4-2) looming.
The situation turned when the Colts lost to the previously winless Tennessee Titans at home in Week 6. The next day, Ballard was fired and assistant general manager Ed Dodds took over.
In 2018, Nelson and linebacker Darius Leonard became the first rookie teammates to earn All-Pro honors since former Chicago Bears teammates Gale Sayers and Dick Butkus in 1965. Nelson was an All-Pro from 2018 to 2020, and was a major factor on the line for his entire career.
The Seahawks (4-3) wanted Nelson because the offensive line has struggled to open holes in the running game since losing Super Bowl MVP Kenneth Walker III in free agency. The hope in Seattle is that this move will make a difference.
They'll get their glimpse at how Nelson fits Monday night when the Seahawks host the Chicago Bears (5-2).
AP Pro Football Writer Josh Dubow also contributed to this report.
See AP’s full NFL coverage here
FILE - Indianapolis Colts guard Quenton Nelson (56) looks to block Washington Commanders linebacker Sonny Styles (52) during the second half of an NFL football game in London on Sunday, Oct. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher, File)
FILE - Indianapolis Colts offensive lineman Quenton Nelson looks on before an NFL football game against the Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Three once high-flying brothers convicted of exploiting their wealth and access to luxury real estate to drug and rape dozens of women were sentenced Tuesday to 30 years in prison.
U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni announced the punishment for Tal, Oren and Alon Alexander — known collectively as the Alexander Brothers — after 11 accusers spoke in court.
“Your conduct was monstrous,” the judge told the men as she announced the sentences, saying their insistence that they have been rehabilitated since getting married and having children ”rings hollow.”
Upon learning their fates, Tal and Alon Alexander sat back in their seats with no real expression. Their brother turned to whisper something to his lawyer as the judge spoke.
Many of the women in the packed courtroom gallery appeared unhappy when the sentences were rendered. Over the previous hours, some of them choked up as they described how the assaults stole their innocence and left them haunted by nightmares and fearing men.
“It took one night, only a few hours, one invitation to completely wreck the girl I once was,” one woman, using a pseudonym to protect her identity, said as she stood at a lectern just feet from the brothers in a Manhattan courtroom.
Twins Oren and Alon, 39, and Tal Alexander, 40, were convicted in March of sex trafficking.
None of the brothers testified during the first phase of the trial, but each spoke Tuesday before they were sentenced.
Oren Alexander addressed the courtroom first, saying, “I am not here to discount what they have said,” referring to the women.
He said he and his brothers came of age at the height of hookup culture and, looking back and now as a father, he regrets many of the things he said about women at that time. However, he insisted that they never broke the law.
“My brothers and I have never drugged or raped anyone. We never trafficked anyone for sex and we never conspired to hurt anyone,” he said.
Tal Alexander also denied that he drugged or raped anyone. He asked the judge to assign him to same prison as his brothers, saying their parents, both age 70, hope to visit them every weekend, which might be difficult if they’re at different lockups.
Alon Alexander said he, too, has evolved from his regrettable past, noting that not a single woman has accused him of wrongdoing in the eight years he’s been committed to his wife: “Over time, that became my life: work, home, children, parents, community.”
The accusers who spoke in court — and another whose statement was read by a prosecutor — were among at least 70 women who prosecutors say were assaulted by one or more of the brothers over the last two decades in posh locales including the Hamptons on Long Island and in Aspen, Colorado.
Lindsey Acree, an artist and gallery owner, testified that she was raped by Tal Alexander and another man at a Hamptons home in 2011 after taking a drink that she said left her feeling paralyzed. Scrapping her prepared remarks, she told Caproni that a life sentence wouldn’t begin to do justice for the women whose lives were irreparably harmed.
“This has wasted my damn time. It’s wasted your time. It’s wasted everyone in this room’s time,” Acree told the judge. Turning to the brothers, she said: “For why? For you. Because you did some really messed up stuff.”
“The biggest thing is why? Why did you do this?” Acree asked. “I don’t understand the cruelty. I don’t understand the hatred towards women.”
Another woman who testified that Tal Alexander raped her in August 2014 said she carried “a quiet funeral in me for the person I might have become had this not happened to me.”
“Every second that Tal raped me in that shower felt like an eternity of terror,” said the woman, who used a pseudonym.
Another woman speaking about her rape in the Hamptons said: “What looked like a beautiful place became for me a mansion of horror, a mansion of dark secrets.”
Prosecutors had sought life prison sentences while the brothers’ lawyers had requested the 15-year mandatory minimum.
Oren and Tal Alexander were once nicknamed real estate’s “A Team” for their ultra high-end sales and celebrity clientele. After smashing sales records at industry powerhouse Douglas Elliman, the brothers started their own firm. Alon Alexander ran their family’s private security company.
The brothers projected an exclusive lifestyle of yachts, private jets and waterfront mansions in Miami, but prosecutors said they began sexually assaulting women as early as 2001 or 2002, when they were in high school, and over time developed a pattern of drugging and raping women who they enticed to join them on luxury getaways.
In remarks before the sentence was announced, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elizabeth Espinosa told the judge that the brothers’ “callousness, carelessness, cruelty” in repeatedly drugging and raping women over many years warranted a life prison term, especially since all their victims would be serving life sentences of pain.
“Women overcame all the forces telling them this was their fault, they should stay quiet, that no one would believe them,” the prosecutor said. “Despite that pain, so many came forward and 11 women testified at trial.”
Alon Alexander’s lawyer, Howard Srebnick, called a life sentence a “death in prison sentence.”
In court papers, defense lawyers said the brothers apologize to the women they insulted or offended for conduct they admit was “insensitive toward the feelings of certain women at certain times.” They also maintained their innocence.
The trio were arrested in 2024 and have been held without bail ever since.
The judge, Caproni, has said she believes the brothers should not be incarcerated at the same prison because they were a bad influence on one another. The brothers’ lawyers plan to argue that they belong together, even behind bars.
FILE - This photo provided by the Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department shows Alon Alexander, left, and Oren Alexander, both of whom have been charged with sex trafficking. (Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation Department via AP, File)
FILE - Oren and Tal Alexander speak at a panel at the Rockstars of Real Estate Event in New York., on Sept. 3, 2013. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Invision for DETAILS Magazine/AP Images, File)
