In Washington, we have long talked about non-denial denials. But is there such a thing as a non-admission admission? A non-confession confession? A non-confirmation confirmation?
New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel may have created the genre. When the New York Post’s Page Six published photographs of him cavorting with NFL reporter Dianna Russini (both are married to other people), Vrabel said in a statement that the pictures “show a completely innocent interaction and any suggestion otherwise is laughable. This doesn’t deserve any further response.”
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Days before the NFL draft, Vrabel finally gave the story a further response. If it was still laughable, he wasn’t laughing. Instead, he told reporters on camera that he had been having “some difficult conversations with people that I care about,” including his family, the players on his football team, and higher-ups in the organization.
Presumably, those “difficult conversations” were not about the challenges of fame in the age of social media or the cultural consequences of clickbait journalism in sports and other human endeavors. But Vrabel stopped well short of admitting any hanky-panky or delving into how innocent or not his interactions with Russini had been.
If a picture paints a thousand words, Vrabel spoke far fewer.
Perhaps we don’t need all the gory details, and in the end, this is between Vrabel, God, and his wife. But it seemed unlikely to quell interest in the subject.
Though the optics were poor and certainly raised questions, the original pictures were not quite a smoking gun. They showed hugging, hand-holding, and lounging by the swimming pool. A subsequent Page Six story reported that Vrabel and Russini later had breakfast together. The New York Post is famous for unflattering coverage of Boston sports figures.
A man may not like seeing another man engaging in the activities depicted with his wife. A woman would be well within her rights to feel the same about another woman and her husband. But context matters, and nothing was shown that absolutely couldn’t have been platonic. Breakfast may or may not be the most important meal of the day, but no one has ever claimed it was the most romantic.
At the same time, it was unlikely that the photographer accidentally happened upon Vrabel and Russini. If either or both of them were tailed, one imagines the snoop had some idea what he was looking for. They were both in Arizona for the annual league meeting, which took place at the Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix. They were spotted at the Ambiente in Sedona, some distance away, described in media accounts as an “adults-only resort.” (The New York Post has since published photos of Vrabel and Russini canoodling in a bar six years ago, seemingly removing all doubt.)
Unlike Las Vegas, what happened in Sedona did not stay in Sedona. Nevertheless, Vrabel and Russini’s denials, buttressed by a stubborn refusal to talk about it further afterward, might have settled the matter. But Russini’s then-employer, the New York Times-owned Athletic, conducted an investigation. The full results of that inquiry are not yet known, but it has been widely reported that aspects of Vrabel and Russini’s story — particularly that other people were with them — seemingly did not hold up.
Russini, whose contract with the Athletic was set to expire, resigned. In doing so, she admitted even less than Vrabel. She complained in her resignation letter that “commentators in various media have engaged in self-feeding speculation that is simply unmoored from the facts.”
What Russini did do, however, was make Vrabel’s continued silence untenable. With the NFL draft fast approaching, he needed to say something, or he would be asked about it at a time when new players were being introduced to the media.
Moreover, Russini’s resignation created the impression of a double standard. She lost her job, and her career as she knew it might be in jeopardy. Nothing like that is likely to happen to Vrabel. Neither the NFL nor the Patriots is investigating him.
It might not actually be a double standard. As a journalist, engaging in a romantic or sexual relationship with a person you are writing about is a serious professional and ethical breach. If that is in fact what happened, it harms both her credibility and that of her employer. Vrabel’s alleged involvement is a serious personal ethical violation, but unless he has a morals clause in his contract, it is less of a professional one. You could argue that it contradicts his instruction to players to make good decisions and not create off-field distractions — he acknowledged as much in his own remarks. That’s probably not a fireable offense.
It is conceivable that this might complicate Vrabel’s relationship with his star quarterback, Drake Maye. Maye is a devout Christian married to his middle-school sweetheart. But Maye appeared to get along with notorious playboy wide receiver Stefon Diggs last season. Professional football frequently pairs the devout and the debauched without incident.
There have been rumors about Russini in the past. Whether they are true, simply professional jealousy, or the kind of cattiness too often directed at women in (especially sports) journalism is unclear. This is, to my knowledge, the first time anything like this has been alleged of Vrabel, who is a well-known champion of female sports reporters.
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Vrabel had a marvelous first season as the Patriots’ head coach, taking the team to the Super Bowl after back-to-back 4-13 campaigns. As a former Patriots linebacker who played under legendary head coach Bill Belichick and with future Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady (from whom he caught 12 touchdown passes despite being a defensive player), he is among the organization’s last links to the old Patriots dynasty — and may be in the process of creating a new one.
So Vrabel isn’t going anywhere. But there is no denying that this is a sad state of affairs. In fact, Vrabel himself all but confirmed it.
W. James Antle III (@jimantle) is executive editor of the Washington Examiner magazine.
