The Dianna Russini-Mike Vrabel scandal grew new legs this week in the oddest of ways.
The New York Times, which owns The Athletic, published a scathing report on their former NFL insider Wednesday morning, to the tune of 5,000 words.
The novel included several eyebrow-raising items, including Russini’s reported salary at The Athletic ($800,000), a tense back and forth between Russini and the writers of the story (her former co-workers), and an ESPN source telling the Times that Russini and Vrabel were operating “very flagrantly.”
No clue what that means, but it doesn’t sound great!
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Dianna Russini appears on the red carpet prior to the NFL Honors awards presentation at YouTube Theater in Los Angeles, Calif., on Feb. 10, 2022. (Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports)
Anyway, one of the juicier nuggets from the report centered around Russini getting pulled over earlier this year. According to the Times, she tried to get out of the ticket by FaceTiming the officer’s favorite NFL team’s head coach.
It worked.
“Do you want to talk to the coach? You should talk to the coach,” Russini asked the officer, according to The Times.
Russini essentially verified the story earlier this year during an appearance on the “Stugotz and Company” podcast.
Take a look:
The NFL wants this Russini story to go away
“I FaceTime the head coach,” she said. “Head coach is in his office. He said, ‘What’s up?’ I go, ‘I just got pulled over and I just wanted you to meet my friend, Officer Joe.’ What a nasty play. But it worked.”
Lordy. This Dianna Russini is a piece of work. Perhaps we should’ve seen this coming, though. She was saying this kind of stuff on podcasts MONTHS AGO. I’ve seen some shady clips that date back years.
And we all just glossed over them, or fake-laughed like the podcast crew in the above clip. In hindsight, Russini had been dropping hints for years.
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Dianna Russini attends the “A Lifetime Of Sundays” screening at The Paley Center for Media in New York City on Sept. 18, 2019. (Astrid Stawiarz/WireImage)
As for this particular incident … I’d imagine it has some folks in the NFL sweating today.
Ever since the Russini-Vrabel scandal erupted back in March, we’ve heard at various times that the rest of the league is nervous. It’s almost like there’s more meat on this bone, and folks know what it is, but nobody has actually said it yet.
Take the above clip, for instance.
She FaceTimed an NFL head coach during a traffic stop to get out of a ticket, he allegedly answered, and it worked. It seems harmless on the surface, but why in the world is an NFL head coach answering a FaceTime from Dianna Russini? That doesn’t just happen by accident.
It’s not a great look for the NFL, which, I’m quite sure, would love this story to go away.
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ESPN reporter Dianna Russini looks on during the NFL game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Sept. 16, 2018. (Mark Alberti/Icon Sportswire)
“I think the entire league is nervous,” two-time Pro Bowler Mark Schlereth, now an NFL on FOX analyst, said in a social media post last week.
Training camps open in less than a month. The season is just over two months away. The New York Times has still not concluded its investigation into Russini, but this story is probably a sign that it’s coming.
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And if this was any indication, it’s probably not good.
For Russini, or the NFL.
