The Athletic has determined that former NFL reporter Dianna Russini violated newsroom standards with her relationship with Mike Vrabel, the head coach of the New England Patriots.
On Thursday, The New York Times-owned Athletic released the findings of the newspaper’s internal investigation into 51-year-old Vrabel and 43-year-old Russini’s relationship.
Conducted by Mike Semel, an editorial director for standards and quality at The Athletic, the report comes after Russini resigned from her role in April following outrage over pictures that emerged of her and Vrabel — who are both married to other people — hugging and holding hands.
Although the review concluded that Russini violated her workplace’s conflict-of-interest rules by not disclosing her relationship with the coach, Semel did not find any inaccuracies in her reporting about Vrabel or his teams. He reviewed 903 articles, 204 podcast episodes, and 77 videos, and conducted 14 interviews with staffers at the paper before coming to a conclusion.
“Russini's relationship with Vrabel was in clear violation of The Athletic's standards,” the report said. “Regardless of whether the relationship was romantic, it was a breach and should have been disclosed.”
The findings continued, “I've not found a clear link to conclude that Russini used her platform to help promote Vrabel or help his teams during her time at The Athletic.”
He went on to add that most of Russini’s coverage of Vrabel and the Patriots was “transactional and newsy.” The review noted that Russini had an abundance of sources in the NFL, and that about five percent of the stories she wrote mentioned Vrabel — with none of them including exclusive information that was not reported by other organizations.
“The vast majority of Russini’s work for The Athletic had nothing to do with Vrabel, the teams he was coaching or the players the team was pursuing,” Semel wrote.
Semel did, however, find “examples of Russini writing glowingly of Vrabel that in hindsight are awkward or even uncomfortable,” noting a few specific instances where her writing was “effusive.” And one story in particular — about the time period between Vrabel’s firing from the Tennessee Titans and his hiring by the Patriots — “likely would not have happened were it not for the connection between Russini and Vrabel,” Semel stated.
Russini resigned from The Athletic April 14, a week after Page Six published pictures of her and Vrabel together at an Arizona resort. Semel wrote that the sports journalist waited two days to tell her editors and managers after she had first been confronted with the pictures.
“She then told a story to explain the photos that did not align with facts, raising issues of trust,” the review said.
Neither Russini nor Vrabel have admitted to any romantic relationship.
Upon her resignation, Russini said in a statement that she stood by her journalism throughout her time at the company since 2023, but had “no interest in submitting to a public inquiry that has already caused far more damage than I am willing to accept.”
Vrabel only opened up about the controversy to say that the leaked pictures of him with Russini forced him to have “difficult conversations with people I care about," including his family, his coaching staff, team officials and players.
“Those [conversations] have been positive and productive. In order to be successful on and off the field, you have to make good decisions. That includes me. That starts with me,” he said.
The Independent has contacted Russini and Vrabel for comment.
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