Expert: Mike Vrabel’s Dianna Russini scandal strategy ‘is a disaster’

The winds have died down around the Mike Vrabel-Dianna Russini controversy, but that doesn’t mean the New England Patriots coach is out of the woods yet.

The Athletic’s investigation into former NFL insider Russini’s reporting around Vrabel and other topics, which will be released publicly, is still a few weeks out.

Not to mention, there’s no telling when Russini might break her silence and drop a tell-all.

After attempting to laugh off the photos of him and Russini together as “laughable,” Vrabel has tried to half-heartedly apologize and hope everyone moves on.

Crisis communication experts have long said that until the NFL coach fully comes clean in an authentic way, the wound at the center of this controversy will continue to be picked at.

Molly McPherson, a crisis communications and strategy expert, has been saying for some time that the strategy won’t work. And she reiterated that stance this week in an interview with USA Today.

“Vrabel is running, in my opinion, a staged rehabilitation, albeit somewhat clumsily,” McPherson told USA Today Sports. “Everything he’s doing is sequenced to move from that initial denial in the beginning to where we are now.”

McPherson told USA Today that she would suggest Vrabel do a sit-down interview with a news outlet where he could lay out the truth and take full accountability.

“He still hasn’t taken accountability, so people are still going to look for it,” she said. “Accountability that only activates when you get caught isn’t accountability. And Mike Vrabel hasn’t taken any accountability. He’s only spoken publicly about what he’s doing privately as a person.”

McPherson added that it’s not as though many people are calling for Vrabel’s job because of the scandal. If anything, the lack of fear around losing his position should invite more accountability.

“People are not holding NFL coaches to a moral standard where they can never cheat, and if they cheat they have to lose their jobs,” McPherson said.

The TikTok-famous crisis communication expert added that Vrabel has made several good starts, such as missing Day 3 of the draft to spend time with his family and admitting he’s had difficult conversations with his family and the team. However, the entirety of the head-in-the-sand strategy hasn’t been as successful as it might seem in this moment.

“The sum is a disaster,” she said.