When studying the consequences of the still-new business partnership between ESPN and the NFL (which as of April 1 owns 10 percent of ESPN), it\u2019s important to consider not only the content of any journalism with which The Shield may take issue but also the manner in which it is presented.<\/p>\n
Will it be showcased? Will it be downplayed? Will the authors of the article run through the full ESPN studio-show car wash? Or will it be given short, if any, shrift on the main network?<\/p>\n
As it relates to the latest journalistic offering from ESPN \u2014 an article from Ben Strauss and Kalyn Kahler<\/a> about Patriots coach Mike Vrabel\u2019s unique offseason \u2014 the timing of the publication is encouraging. It wasn\u2019t buried into the late-afternoon hours of the Friday of Labor Day weekend. It showed up on Monday morning, two days before the Patriots start the season with a Super Bowl LX rematch in Seattle.<\/p>\n The story delves into the prevailing mindset within the Patriots organization: Move on. That\u2019s what they\u2019ve done, and that\u2019s what they\u2019re still doing. They declined to make Vrabel available for the story, which likely prompted Kahler\u2019s recent press-conference appearance and question about lessons learned from counseling. Which sparked an extended filibuster that landed the plane with commentary on offensive line play<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Patriots also declined to comment on any of the reporting in the story. That said, they made two players available: running back Rhamondre Stevenson and safety Kevin Byard.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just tried to move on as fast as we can from that,\u201d Stevenson said regarding the scandal that emerged in April, when the New York Post released the first set of photos showing Vrabel with Dianna Russini, who was serving at the time as the Senior NFL Insider for The Athletic.<\/p>\n The story contains some intriguing nuggets. Vrabel\u2019s initial comment to the Post, in which he downplayed the images as showing a \u201ccompletely innocent interaction and any suggestion otherwise is laughable,\u201d was going to be even stronger. Vrabel wanted to defend Russini\u2019s reporting. This underscores past reporting that, before Russini told the Post about the images, she coordinated her response with Vrabel.<\/p>\n The story quickly took on a life of its own, with more images and at least one video fueling an about-face from Vrabel. After the Post published images of Vrabel and Russini at a New York City bar in March 2020, Vrabel stepped away from the third day of the NFL draft to attend counseling with his family.<\/p>\n Through it all, Russini has done nothing to soften her own strong denial, which included a resignation letter that blamed the media for speculation that was \u201csimply unmoored from the facts<\/a>.\u201d By the time a video surfaced<\/a> of a very pregnant Russini and Vrabel waiting for a boat to be unmoored, her version had been undermined \u2014 to say the least.<\/p>\n But while Russini walked away from her reported $800,000 per year job<\/a> and disappeared from view (for now), Vrabel persisted. And the organization rallied around him. He has suffered no professional consequence, prompting many to still point to an obvious double standard<\/a>.<\/p>\n The players have had no issue with the situation. As former Vrabel teammate Shaun Smith told ESPN, \u201cSome guys are gonna be like, \u2018Hey, he\u2019s a dirtbag like me.\u2019 You might have some guys who want to high-five him.\u201d<\/p>\n Said Byard, who played for Vrabel in Tennessee before joining him in New England: \u201cWe all fall short sometimes; that\u2019s what makes us human. I\u2019m not going to question a guy\u2019s choices . . . as long as they don\u2019t affect things on the field, and I haven\u2019t seen that.\u201d<\/p>\n The story also explores the impact of the ordeal on other coaches and other female reporters, delving into Vrabel\u2019s habit of giving the first question at each press conference to Teresa Walker in Nashville and, more recently, to Karen Guregian in New England.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a tough business I think for females, for women, just trying to break in,\u201d Vrabel told ESPN in 2025. \u201cThen I get to Tennessee just trying to get to know everyone and there\u2019s Teresa, she\u2019s plugging away, and she\u2019s always right there in the front row, super attentive, so I figured just out of respect for her, give her the first question and it kinda stuck.\u201d<\/p>\n The Russini-Vrabel situation has become a different kind of sticking point beyond their orbit. As an unnamed assistant coach with another team told ESPN, \u201cAll the coaches are under surveillance right now, all the shit with Vrabel.\u201d<\/p>\n Said another unnamed assistant coach to ESPN: \u201cIt\u2019s the insinuation; you gotta watch yourself because players, coaches, people are looking at you, like \u2018Are you in a relationship?\u2019 . . . That is the trickle-down effect. Just imagine you\u2019ve been working all day, 14, 16 hours, and you get to come home and your wife says, \u2018Hey, did you see this?\u2019 . . . It creates the perception of, \u2018OK, this is what coaches are doing when we\u2019re out of town or playing away games.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Hovering over the entire situation is the point raised last month by Mike Tomlin, in his first pregame appearance on NBC. His quote appears near the bottom of the ESPN story: \u201cWhen games start, winning matters. And so if they get off to a fast start, they\u2019ve got a chance to quiet some of that noise. If they don\u2019t, that noise could get extremely loud<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n