Dianna Russini Mike Vrabel Credit: The Athletic
By Alex Reimer on

We don’t need to know more about Dianna Russini’s relationship with Mike Vrabel to render a journalistic verdict: it raises questions about her reporting.

Without analyzing their poolside hug and hand-holding, we can infer they’re close. Page Six says a “spy” spotted the pair two weeks ago at an intimate, adult-only resort near Sedona, Arizona. In statements, both parties say there was nothing nefarious about their hangout.

The Athletic, Russini’s employer, is standing by her. “These photos are misleading and lack essential context,” said executive editor Steven Ginsberg.

While that may be true, one could say the same about some of Russini’s reporting. Like other high-profile insiders, the veteran scoop machine produces a constant stream of content. She breaks news, files columns and feature stories, hosts her own podcast, and is omnipresent on TV, radio, and all digital platforms. Her ubiquity can make it hard to differentiate what’s fact, what’s insinuation, and what’s her opinion.

When it comes to Vrabel, Russini has intimately covered his coaching career, co-writing the definitive story on his exit from the Titans and landing multiple exclusive interviews with him last season. Along the way, she’s hyped up his demand, as well as his physique.

Russini’s reporting on Vrabel is revealing. When put in the context of their apparent closeness, it exposes NFL insiderdom for the unvarnished access game that it is.

Suspicion around scoops

Dianna Russini often portrays Mike Vrabel in a favorable light. Following his departure from the Titans, she published a detailed report of his breakup with the team. In it, Russini indicates that Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk was annoyed that Vrabel returned to New England during a bye week to be inducted into the franchise’s Hall of Fame.

Rather than speak with Vrabel, sources say that Strunk let her animosity “fester.”

In a particularly damning anecdote, the article mentions that Strunk left the Titans’ Week 14 game early. The Titans overcame a 13-point deficit in the final minutes of the fourth quarter to win.

Curiously, Russini and her co-author Joe Rexrode report that a member of the team’s analytics staff didn’t think Vrabel made the right decision when he called a successful two-point conversion that clinched the game.

Despite Vrabel’s success in Tennessee (54-45 record over five seasons), he wasn’t hired for the 2024 campaign. On The Athletic’s NFL podcast, Russini said a GM told her that Vrabel’s imposing build works against him in interviews. “He can be intimidating to people in an organization,” she said.

One person whom Mike Vrabel apparently doesn’t intimidate is Robert Kraft. The Patriots hired him in January 2025 and Dianna Russini had the scoop, along with Adam Schefter and myriad other insiders.

After the fact, Russini revealed that “every team with a head coaching vacancy pursued Vrabel.” She was the only insider with that particular nugget.

When Mike Vrabel coached the Titans, Dianna Russini was a constant presence. This year, she was always around the Patriots. From training camp onwards, she was practically embedded with the surprise AFC champion. Her first friendly feature with Vrabel was posted on August 17.

Her last one was posted February 8, the day of their Super Bowl loss to the Seahawks.

When Russini covers the Titans today, it’s through the lens of Vrabel’s departure. “Nobody ever questioned who the Titans were when Mike Vrabel was their leader,” she wrote in October, before they played the Patriots. “Since they fired him, that’s all anyone wants to know. Who are the Titans now?”

Russini isn’t as complimentary of the Titans’ new head coach, Robert Saleh. “What’s outrageous is suggesting Robert Saleh is Vrabel,” she said this year. “These are two very, very different guys.”

Dianna Russini isn’t unique

To be fair, some of the criticism levied towards Russini is sexist. As an NFL reporter in Washington, the GM’s wife publicly accused Russini of sleeping with her husband after she broke a story about Robert Griffin III. The accusation reinforced, as Jemele Hill put it at the time, a “trashy stereotype against female journalists.”

When female sportswriters get close to a source, they are accused of sleeping with them. But honestly, what makes Russini holding hands with Vrabel at a hotel pool more intimate than, say, Jay Glazer, sweating in the ring with Aaron Rodgers?

When Rodgers stopped showing up at Glazer’s gym this off-season, the long-time Fox insider acted like a scorned lover.

While Russini is clearly close with Vrabel, at least we have no evidence of her sending stories his way for approval. We can’t say the same for Schefter, who was caught forwarding one of his reports about the NFL lockout to former Washington executive Bruce Allen.

“Please let me know if you see anything that should be added, changed, tweaked,” Schefter emailed. “Thanks, Mr. Editor, for that and the trust.”

One of the more onerous practices employed by insiders is reporting contractual terms directly from their favorite agents’ mouths. The initial reported value of any major contract is almost always exaggerated and misleading.

When information is currency, glazing is part of the job. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why so few of Russini’s fellow insiders have commented on the situation.

The A.J. Brown beat

Along similar lines, Russini has breathlessly reported about A.J. Brown’s apparent unhappiness in Philadelphia. This offseason, she’s suggested the Patriots and Rams have made “strong pushes” to land the wideout. But Russini’s reporting doesn’t seem to match reality: the Eagles would incur a massive $43.44 million cap hit if they trade Brown before June 1.

If the Eagles shop Brown this summer, the Patriots could be a suitor. It’s apparent that Mike Vrabel is interested in a reunion. Perhaps Dianna Russini is laying the groundwork for that.

She’s made it clear that star players want to play for Vrabel, or at least that’s what she hears. Earlier this year, she said on Boston radio that Maxx Crosby has told her he “wants to play” for the three-time Super Bowl champ.

Crosby is still with the Raiders after a proposed trade to the Ravens fell apart.

But in our fast-churning world, there’s no consequence for being wrong or for being flattering towards sources with whom an insider has a close, personal relationship that may go beyond football.

Questions will linger about the reporting of Dianna Russini moving forward. Her first tweet about the NFL Referees Association is already being ratioed with Vrabel memes in the replies. But for now, she will press forward as if it’s business as usual because the algorithm keeps going regardless.

About Alex Reimer

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