Mike Vrabel’s Hubris Made Him the Main Character of the NFL Draft

On Thursday evening, the draft began with a whimper––a no. 1 pick watching from home in a free shirt, a running back chosen third, and a first round that lacked splashy trades, hyped-up quarterbacks, or juicy story lines. In other words, no match for a sex scandal. Mike Vrabel and the Patriots had to be yearning for someone to pull a Laremy Tunsil.

Instead, Vrabel, the Patriots communications team, and any outside crisis PR specialists they’re working with on the fallout from Page Six’s reporting about his relationship with former Athletic NFL reporter Dianna Russini seemingly spent the day thinking and rethinking strategies. Hours before the draft, additional damning photos of Vrabel and Russini were published, by both Page Six and TMZ, of the pair together in 2020 and 2024, respectively. By then, it was clear that the story had broken another level of containment. Well before Fernando Mendoza became a Raider—on one of the biggest days of the year for the NFL—Vrabel made himself the story of the draft.

Just two days earlier, the story seemed to have the potential to die down. On Tuesday, the Patriots made a last-minute change to their media schedule, putting Vrabel in front of reporters for the first time since the original photos of him and Russini hugging, holding hands, and sharing a hot tub at an adults-only resort in Arizona were published.

Vrabel’s tone in those comments were different from his original defiant response to Page Six, in which he said it was “laughable” to suggest the photos represented anything inappropriate.

“I’ve had some difficult conversations with people that I care about. With my family, the organization, the coaches, the players,” Vrabel said on Tuesday. He also talked about making “good decisions.” He thanked the reporters there for their patience “in a personal and private matter.” His general tone was humble.

It was the first time that either Vrabel or Russini, who resigned last week, citing a “media frenzy” while maintaining things weren’t what they looked like, had stepped back from their initial outright denials of anything untoward. Vrabel gave his prepared statement on camera before taking several questions off camera. He was asked about the “laughable” comment, and whether he stood by it.

“I appreciate the question. I’m going to focus on our football team. I think I’ve addressed what I felt like was important,” Vrabel said.

And that really might have been that. By making Vrabel available at the last minute, the Patriots communications staff ensured that only a small group of reporters, those who cover the team daily and probably want to preserve decent relationships with the head coach, were there to ask questions. Insisting on cameras being turned off cuts off material for TV segments or viral clips. Vrabel managed to avoid giving any specifics, but got credit in Boston media for addressing the situation before any players could be asked about it. A take I heard on multiple podcasts was that this strategy might eventually make him more relatable to those players, particularly if they were ever caught up in unseemly news.

Russini’s resignation stemmed from her journalistic obligation—it wasn’t the impression that she’d had an improper relationship that was disqualifying, but rather that she’d had one with a source—but infidelity is not generally a fireable offense. There is plenty of history to back up that it isn’t in the NFL, and the league has already confirmed that Vrabel was not under investigation for violating the personal conduct policy. The shakiest ground for Vrabel seemed to be his initial denial, but as of Tuesday he believed he could hand-wave that question back to his original statement and move on. Maybe he thought it would be the last time he’d have to talk about it.

It wasn’t. A little over a day later, late Wednesday night, Vrabel told ESPN that he would miss the third day of the draft on Saturday to attend counseling.

"As I said the other day, I promised my family, this organization, and this team that I was going to give them the best version of me that I can possibly give them. In order to do so, I have committed to seeking counseling, starting this weekend," Vrabel said. "This is something that I have given a lot of thought to and is something I would advise a player to do if I was counseling them.”

It’s a more than reasonable sentiment, and a more than reasonable step for someone in Vrabel’s position to take. But in doing so, a story he had hoped would die was invigorated. By announcing he’d miss a day of the draft, he’d given any sports media members who had previously been cautious about engaging with tabloid-y news a pure football way in. By missing only one day, he’d also left the unfortunate impression that counseling was a priority—but second only to the top 100 draft picks.

It’s possible that Vrabel and his PR team chose to reopen the conversation late Wednesday night because they knew what was coming. On Thursday, the Post published photos of Vrabel and Russini sitting close together at a New York City bar in March 2020. In one of the photos, it looks like Vrabel has just kissed Russini on the cheek. An additional photo, of the pair at a casino together shortly after Vrabel was fired by the Titans in January 2024, dropped a short time later via TMZ. There may be more. Vrabel and Russini should assume there will be more. If this was a six-plus-year affair between two public figures who do not appear to have been careful about their public interactions, it’s hard to see how there wouldn’t be more.

It’s baffling to think that Vrabel and the Patriots thought they could get past this story so quickly, but it appears they spent some of Thursday scrambling. As of Thursday morning, the Patriots had told media members that either Vrabel or Eliot Wolf, the team’s executive vice president of player personnel, would speak after the team’s first-round selection. By late afternoon, with the new photos spreading across social media—along with old clips of Russini interviewing or talking about Vrabel, often glowingly and making mention of his physical attributes—it was clear that that would be insufficient. The Patriots released a statement of support for Vrabel. The communications department updated the media schedule and announced that Vrabel would have a press conference around 7:20 p.m. ET, before the first round began.

Approaching prime time, Vrabel was now scheduled to give his third set of public comments in as many days about a story they were hoping to quiet. Also around this time, Russini deleted her X account.

"My previous actions don't meet the standard that I hold myself to,” Vrabel said. “They don't. And what I believe is best for the two most important things in my life, my family and this football team, is for us to take the necessary steps together and to give them what I told them I'd give them, which is the best version of me.”

Most of what Vrabel said Thursday evening simply reiterated his prior statements, with a bit more focus on his decision to attend counseling. He thanked Robert and Jonathan Kraft for their support. He did give a slightly more substantial answer to another question about why he initially called the Page Six report “laughable,” saying, “I think that was always an attempt to protect [my] family.”

It takes a good deal of hubris to believe you can outrun a story that combines sex, the fall from grace of public figures, The New York Times, the New England Patriots, and years of social media posts and podcast clips and interactions that can be revisited and reexamined by Reddit commenters and reporters alike. It would have taken a good deal of hubris to think more photos weren’t coming. By trying to get past the story without owning up to the whole of it, Vrabel and the Patriots have wound up on the back foot, responding piecemeal and fueling the barrage of updates that have now migrated far beyond the sports pages and become the story of the draft.

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