Analyzing Vrabel’s latest statement ahead of draft
Mike Florio and Chris Simms discuss the Patriots' decision to have Mike Vrabel read a statement in front of the media on Tuesday and break down how it impacts players and journalists.
Video Transcript
Speaking of coaches named Mike, Mike Vrabel yesterday, and this is a, this is a difficult right turn, and that's the only segue I could think of.
He once played for the Steelers but did not- That's right coach them.
He did.
And now coaches the New England Patriots.
He was a draft pick of the Steelers, second round, I believe, in 2000.
Was he a second rounder?
I- I think he was a second rounder.
Yeah.
If I'm not mistaken.
I thought he was a third- Leo I'm mistaken but maybe, maybe, yeah, it's, it's somewhere.
Around there.
Yeah.
Okay.
Played for the Steelers, played for the Patriots, was part of the Matt Cassel trade to the Kansas City Chiefs in 2009.
Was kind of- Man thrown in there.
I'm sure he was real thrilled about that.
Yeah.
But anyway, won three Super Bowls with the Patriots as a player, took the Patriots to the Super Bowl in his first year as a head coach after a successful run at Tennessee that resulted in the ill-advised decision by the Titans to fire him.
Although, I kind of think in hindsight he wanted to get out of there and position himself to go to New England.
That's where he is now.
And the story of Well, until the other story that Chris talked about a minute ago.
The story of the league for two weeks.
Thank you.
Two weeks.
Can you imagine that it lasted- Just trying to be a good journalist here for two weeks?
Yeah.
That it lasted for two weeks?
Two weeks and counting.
Really, we're day 15 now since the photos were published by the New York Post of Mike Vrabel and Diana Russini, formerly of The Athletic, at a adults-only resort in Sedona, and there was a very dismissive approach taken by all of the parties involved.
Vrabel said, among other things, "It's laughable.
Deserves no further response."
Well, 14 days later, and with very limited notice to the reporters who cover the team, they issued an email on Monday as to who would be available on Tuesday, and it didn't say Mike Vrabel's gonna be talking, and then lo and behold, here comes Vrabel into the media room.
And he had a about two and a half minute statement.
If you watched PFT PM yesterday, first of all, thank you.
Second of all, we played the whole thing there.
The whole thing's out there.
We're just gonna break it up into a couple of pieces.
Here he is on why he hadn't addressed the situation with reporters before two weeks had passed following the publication of the photos.
I understand I could've, you know, addressed you guys sooner, but it was important to me, to have a conversation with the players, which I did yesterday, very candidly, as we began, our off-season program, which everyone is excited to be a part of.
You know, I also don't wanna take away from our, you know, the draft, the weekend of the draft.
You know?
This is an important time for us and our organization, and the excitement and the joy that those players are gonna have that, that we bring, onto our football team.
You know, they're starting an amazing journey, one that should be celebrated, a- as we welcome them onto our team.
Well, that statement makes it a little more awkward if they do use his pick number 31 on the player who gets traded to the Eagles after June 1.
I thought of that as he was saying it yesterday.
That's your, the, the Chris Simms theory on what may happen with the A.J.
Brown trade.
Pick 31 goes to the Patriots, a guy who eventually gets traded to the Eagles, and who knows, that could still happen.
But I didn't expect this yesterday, and Tom Curran- Yeah was on with me on Tuesday, and we both agreed, and I think the prevailing thought was we wouldn't hear from Mike Vrabel until round one of the draft.
Because that's been the approach they've taken.
He issued the statement.
It was a very strong statement, very strong denial.
"It's laughable," based on the photos.
"Laughable.
Deserves no further response."
So he didn't do the pre-draft press conference.
Now, that was predetermined back in March, but we didn't expect him to talk until Thursday night, and maybe it's gonna get interesting.
And maybe, you know, they, th- after they make their pick, and the, the reporters will talk about that, and how many reporters from non-sports outlets will even be there that late on a Thursday night.
That's when we thought we'd hear from him.
Somebody came up with the idea, and this is all cultivated, this is all manicured, this is all predetermined, this is what we're gonna do.
They huddle, and they come up with their PR strategy.
"Here's what we're gonna do.
Here's what we're gonna do.
He's gonna come out, he's gonna make a statement, because we're gonna have other players who are out here talking, and it's gonna be awkward for them to get asked about this, even if we tell them what to say.
It's gonna be awkward.
We don't want them They shouldn't have to do that.
They shouldn't have to field questions about Mike Vrabel before he fields.
So, so we're gonna, we're gonna have him show up, but we're not gonna tell anybody in advance, because then we don't have to worry about NBC News, and CNN, and People Magazine, and Us Weekly.
We don't have to worry about any reporters.
Hell, some of our reporters may stay home.
They may not even be there.
They may have other things to do.
They'll, they'll definitely be there if they know Vrabel's coming, but we just won't tell them.
We'll go in, read a statement, and then that's all he'll say about it.
And if he's asked about it, 'Hey, it's already been addressed.'
Bill Belichick showed us that move years ago.
'It's already been addressed.'
If he gets asked about it Thursday, 'I already addressed it Tuesday.
I'm done talking about it.'"
See, he couldn't have pulled that off on Thursday, because saying it's already been addressed in the statement that he gave initially, that doesn't fly anymore.
Because it's not laughable.
When, when the other person who was in the photos has resigned from her job while under investigation because- Yeah of the nature of the relationship depicted in the photos, you can't just say it's already been addressed, because your initial statement was woefully inadequate.
Yeah, right.
He had to do something.
Yes.
And so they came up with the best way to do it, and I know some reporters are pissed.
Ben Volin of The Boston Globe wrote a whole article about how He called it a sneak attack by the Patriots, and I see his point.
Yeah, I get it.
Now, I don't, I'm not a big fan of the reporter making it about them, and I'm not sure he really did.
He kind of did a little.
Eh, a little bit.
She kind of offended him a little bit.
Kind of did a little bit.
But-I, I, I agree with the point.
The Patriots came up with a PR strategy aimed at minimizing the number of people who would be there to ask Mike Vrabel questions after he reads his statement.
Well, I, I, I, yeah.
I think so.
Well, and, and, you know, I, I'd be interested to know how it went down, because, like, like you kind of laid it out there, yeah, they could've waited till the draft and done that.
But I, I gotta think that somebody in the last, you know, 48 hours started to go, "Uh, I This doesn't make sense.
I think we need to kind of, you know, put this in our rear view mirror to some degree here before the draft starts."
And maybe that's why.
You know, I understand Ben Volin's po- Ben Volin's point, as well.
I do.
I get what he's saying there.
I mean, gosh, he wants to be there, he wants to be a part of this story.
It's three weeks later.
We're still opening the show with it.
It's a huge story.
Like we talked about last week, it's crossed over to mainstream media.
Yahoo News yesterday, the number one story still for, like, let's say 19 out of the last 20 days is Diana Russini and Mike Vrabel.
So yeah, it's a big deal.
I can understand that.
I can understand his thought there.
But at the same time, I can understand the New England Patriots kind of huddling up and going, "Wait.
Maybe this isn't the right approach.
Maybe this isn't right."
One, yeah, maybe they get to Thursday night and they have the first round, you know, little d- press conference right after, and there's not a lot of people there.
Okay?
So then, yes, the local ones that are there, they're gonna probably feel, "Oh, I don't know.
I don't wanna ask about this right now."
And if they don't ask, they're gonna get dragged, and everybody's gonna get dragged in social media about how you didn't ask for this.
And then it's also just gonna feel weird in general if you are Vrabel and you're there, and somebody does ask the question.
And like he talked about, it's supposed to be about the players and this new team going forward, and here we are addressing a situation that I messed up in, and now I gotta talk about that instead of, wow, we got this special football player.
So to me, this is the right move to do it now, right?
And now you can go into the draft.
The, ESPN, NFL Network, they don't have to act like it was an unaddressed situation.
It was addressed to some degree, and they can make it all about the players and do that.
It gets, I think, the fan base and social media off you a little bit.
And now the first thing on the Monday press conference after the draft, or the Tuesday press conference, instead of it being about Mike Vrabel and Diana Russini, now it'll be less about that and more about the football team and going forward.
And that to me is where I can get behind probably why they came to a last second decision to kind of make that happen yesterday.
