NEED TO KNOW
- Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel said his previous actions “don’t meet the standard that I hold myself to” before the 2026 NFL Draft began on Thursday, April 23
- Vrabel previously said he will be missing the third day of the draft to attend counseling with his family
- A few hours earlier, newly-released photos showed Vrabel and Dianna Russini kissing in an N.Y.C. bar in March 2020
New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel took accountability for his previous actions after newly-released photos from six years ago show him and fired reporter Dianna Russini kissing.
“I take accountability for my actions and the actions that caused a distraction to the people that I care most about,” Vrabel, 50, told reporters ahead of the 2026 NFL Draft on Thursday, April 23. “My family, this football team, the organization and the fans.”
Vrabel announced that he would miss the third day of the draft to attend counseling, which he referenced in his comments on Thursday.
“My priorities are my family and this football and in that order,” he said. “There’s a balance there that I’m going to create. My family needs me this weekend and that’s where I’ll be.”
Credit: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty; Cindy Ord/Getty
Vrabel later told reporters that he could not say for certain if he would miss any further football activities in the next few weeks. He also declined to go into further detail on what counseling would entail, calling it a “private and personal matter.”
Just a few hours earlier, Page Six published photos showing Russini and Vrabel getting cozy at a bar on March 10, 2020. In one photo, the two appear to share a kiss, and another shows Vrabel wearing his wedding ring with his hand on Russini’s thigh.
“They were kissing and they were all over each other,” a source who was at the bar told Page Six, adding, “He had a ring on.”
Credit: Winslow Townson/Getty
The photo scandal involving Vrabel and Russini began when Page Six published photos of the pair — who are both married to other people — holding hands, hugging and lounging poolside at the boutique resort Ambiente Sedona on April 7.
Vrabel and Russini both brushed off the photos at the time, with Vrabel describing their meeting as a “completely innocent interaction” in a statement to the New York Post.
Russini told the Post, “The photos don’t represent the group of six people who were hanging out during the day. Like most journalists in the NFL, reporters interact with sources away from stadiums and other venues.”
On April 14, the former NFL reporter, who has broken multiple stories involving Vrabel and the teams he coaches, resigned from her role at The Athletic.
“I have covered the NFL with professionalism and dedication throughout my career, and I stand behind every story I have ever published,” she wrote in her official resignation letter. “When the Page Six item first appeared, The Athletic supported me unequivocally, expressed confidence in my work and pride in my journalism. For that I am grateful.”
Russini said various media had “engaged in self-feeding speculation that is simply unmoored from the facts” in her letter, and claimed the “media frenzy is hurtling forward without regard for the review process The Athletic is trying to complete.”
Russini said she has “no interest in submitting to a public inquiry that has already caused far more damage than I am willing to accept” and said she’s stepping aside “not because I accept the narrative that has been constructed around this episode, but becasue I refuse to lend it further oxygen or let it define me or my career.”
Read the original article on People