How does Vrabel situation impact Patriots?
Devin McCourty and Mike Florio analyze the Mike Vrabel-Dianna Russini story and explain how it could take a toll on the New England Patriots.
Video Transcript
23 since the story of the off season emerged, and there have been times over the past couple of weeks where I'd ask myself, "Will there be another development today?"
Now I ask myself, "What will the development be today?"
Because this thing has taken on a life of its own.
I think one of the realities is everyone involved either got horrible PR advice or got good PR advice and just flat out ignored it.
But something that w- was kind of a weird curiosity, what is this all about, when it first happened, has crossed over.
Chris and I were talking about this yesterday.
When you cross over into paparazzi, when you can't walk through an airport in Utah- Yeah without being photographed or questioned, we are in a territory now where we haven't seen a coach who has then continued to say, "I'm gonna continue to do this job that takes all of my time, all of my focus, all of my effort, while I got this other thing in my personal life that potentially is going to take me away from this thing that I'm otherwise always focused on," and we've already seen it happen with the third day of the draft.
So we haven't had a chance to talk about this at all.
I guess the best way to ease into it, big picture, what is just your general thought for how we got here and what it means to the football team that eventually is gonna have to go out and play 17 games this year?
Yeah, I think, I think the overall how we got here, I think for me, me and my brother have had this conversation nonstop because I was in New England for 13 years, and we had so many d- different things that would come up.
And, you know, I think that was one of the things you said to me when we first started doing this of like, "You guys never said anything.
You had this kind of one line thing that everyone kind of stuck to," whether that was Deflategate, whether that was, you know, even tragically the Hernandez situation.
It was just so many things, and it was always like this tight-knit plan that everybody went out and they executed.
And whether everyone else agreed or disagreed, you, you kind of did it.
And, you know, for the most part, it allowed you to move on and do what everyone ultimately wanted to do, was go try to play football and win football games.
I think this one was so different because it's somebody's personal situation.
It, it, it had no true connection to the team or could someone show up at work?
It was, "Hey man, like, we have no idea what was going on over there.
Like, that's all just you."
And because it, it got downplayed so much in the beginning, I think like everyone has talked about, it, it allowed this story to just continue to carry on and carry on.
And I was actually talking to, a few, former teammates, the last few days of We kind of was just like, "Man, what do you, what do you think about this?"
And the thing that kept popping up in my mind was are my time there, let's, let's say like this happens to, to Coach Belichick.
I think it would've been so different because when, when I went to New England the week before they traveled to San Fran, the talk that you walked away, and I think we even talked about this in some of the meetings, was this team and these players, like the biggest difference was Mike Vrabel.
And there's teams that, like, you go acquire a player or, you know, you know, you get this new coordinator that comes in and, like, that's the talk.
Or like, this one player has this great year.
Of everything that happened in New England, Drake May being the MVP candidate, it was Mike Vrabel.
Like, everyone felt like what he brought And it wasn't just the X's and O's.
They all talked about, "Man, this guy has been vulnerable with us.
We've had conversations about heroes and heartbreak and hope."
Like, it was all of these kind of deep things that you sat there and you were like, "Man, this team's united.
Like, these guys, they care about each other.
They believe in each other.
Like, they've formed a great bond."
And I think when we were there in New England, it was so much with Coach Belichick, it was about winning.
What do we need to do to win?
How do you figure out how you can help the team?
It was more based on that from him than anything else.
It was this genius that understood how to do those things, and you would have these moments where you're laughing and joking with him, and you saw that other side of him that other people didn't see.
But it wasn't as deep as what I heard with the Vrabel, year this year with the guys in New England.
So I think that has a bigger impact on your locker room, when you have those things and you believe in those things.
And I think as some older guys in that locker room who are maybe married with kids, you have a d- different understanding and the experience in life of, "Hey, man, we're all living a journey.
He's going through whatever he's going through.
I'm not judging.
I'm here to work."
But I think it's different when you're younger.
I think younger guys, when you come into situations, you have, you have this thing where you put people on pedestals or you, you think of somebody a certain way and you don't want that to be tarnished.
So I think they're gonna have to navigate that.
I think there are gonna be some young guys who are in that locker room and talk about, "Hey, man, like, this is shocking.
This is disappointing.
How do I get pa-" Like, they don't fully understand yet, hey man, this is a job.
You're here to do a job.
And I think that's what they're gonna have to figure out, and I think the best way is hopefully you don't have anything else that comes from this story.
You don't have to keep answering these same type of questions, that eventually training camp starts, then the first game comes and you can move towards something.
But right now in this kind of like dead period, they're, they're in the eye of the storm, and you're gonna have to keep talking about this because nothing else is more kinda exciting to talk about other than what's the latest in this whole kinda whatever you wanna call it, saga or whatever.
That's what everyone wants to know about.
And, and it was clear, like you said, when we saw all the reports of him and his wife in the airport, and the photos and all that.
Like, that's what life has become, which, you know, nobody really wants, but that it is what it is at this point.And it went from a personal issue to a football issue a week ago when Mike Vrabel announced on the same day that the New York Post had given him an opportunity to comment on the latest set of photos from March of 2020, which paint a very different picture, a much more clear picture than the original photos from Sedona, Arizona, that were taken just last month.
But when he says he's not gonna be there for the third day of the draft because he's gonna be with his family being counseling, that makes it a football issue.
That makes it a distraction to what the Patriots are doing.
It legitimizes it as a football story.
It helps it I think the photos from last Thursday were the thing that pushed it into paparazzi territory, where he can't walk through an airport.
He's gonna be photographed.
He's gonna be questioned.
It's going to be an issue.
The question is, when will it die down?
And it's only gonna die down when they stop giving oxygen to it, and that means everybody involved.
There can't be a- any further developments.
We become conditioned, as I said earlier, not will there be a development, what will it be, and how many will there be?
How many stories will we write today about this?
Not because we're out there trying to say, "Oh, this could be a good story.
Hey, I haven't considered writing about that angle."
It's, there's a development.
Mm-hmm.
So we're gonna write about it because it's relevant now because it's become a football story because he wasn't there for the third day of the draft.
And there are so many other things that can still happen.
And Devin, you know the point I've been making.
I think we're gonna hear from the other person involved in this situation at some point.
I don't think she's gonna stay silent forever.
And it's gonna be very hard for her to return in any capacity.
Now, I assume at some point she's gonna get some good PR advice from someone as opposed to the piss-poor, sorry London, PR advice she got from the crisis communications expert she reportedly hired the day this all hit the fan, because clearly the way she played it was not the way to play it.
But before she can do anything, she gotta tell her story.
Well, in the act of telling her story, now this is my opinion, I'm not saying she will, but if she ever tells her story, you think that's not gonna be relevant to Mike Vrabel and the Patriots?
'Cause we don't know what her story is.
We don't know what she's gonna say.
We don't know if it's gonna make it Hey, when he talked, he made it better for him, worse for her.
Mm-hmm.
When she talks, she may make it better for her, worse for him.
We don't know.
And my point is, this, this hasn't gotten to the point where, all right, there's nothing else.
There's nothing else.
Now we can focus on moving forward.
It's hard to focus on moving forward.
You know, like when we had floods when I was a kid, I lived in a floodplain, and when the w- you know, the water went down, all right, now we can go clean up.
Oh, shit, the water's back.
That's right.
Now, th- th- that's, that's what this feels like.
Like, before they can ever begin to get all the mud and the crap out of the basement, they gotta worry about more water coming in.
So that's, that's the concern that I would have, and I was thinking of Spygate earlier because all the controversies that happened when you were there, they didn't involve Bill.
I still don't know how Bill managed to, like, sidestep- the, the Deflategate.
Like, he's like matador.
Like, he had that cape and he's shaking it, and here comes Deflategate with the horns out, and he just whoop, and l- you know- Yeah it got Tom right in the ass.
But Spygate was the one that Belichick Like, that was on him.
Mm-hmm.
And that was a huge deal.
And he was at the center of the storm.
And, you know, I talk about things that cross over.
That was a big deal.
That was 60 Minutes.
That was national news.
But man, he t- he had his story, and he hunkered down, and he stuck to the script, and there was nothing else that happened at that time.
If it had been a feeding frenzy of, "Oh, and he did this.
Oh, and he did that.
Oh, and he did this," at some point, it wouldn't have been sustainable.
But he had a plan.
He executed the plan.
Oh, and that year they didn't lose a game until Super Bowl XLII.
And it's so interesting, too, 'cause if you, if you put that story in today's media cycle, it, you do wonder, like, does somebody find something else out?
Like, everyone has You know, obviously it wasn't that long ago, so you still had phones and different cameras and stuff.
But it, it just, it's so different now, and I think, I think that's what's, for me, if I'm the Patriots, what's worrisome is the next stage is like you just said.
It, it's totally out of their control.
Like, whatever happens i- if, if she decides to talk, like, you have no control over it.
E- everything is gonna be reactive.
And so far, that's where you haven't That's, that hasn't been your strength.
Reacting to something that comes out or something someone sends to you and says, "Hey, we got this," w- we've seen so far it's been almost like a rush to, like, a bad decision.
So for them, you're, you're kind of wondering, like, if this is gonna happen, when is it gonna happen?
Like, hopefully this happens before the season starts, like, that we don't have to And that, that to me is definitely a little scary because at some point, I think she's gotta wanna get back to work and doing something that she loves again.
And I think for all of us who have ever been in any situation that we're not happy about or if you had a, any bad situation, at some point you get this feeling back to, like, hey man, I wanna get back to myself.
Like, hey, I've suffered enough of, of whatever it is.
How do I now find a path towards, you know, just finding something else?
And even if it's in a different field that she decides going, it just feels like in order to move forward with yourself, your family, your friends, society overall, like, you ha- like, something has to happen.
And I'm sure they're trying to plan what that looks like and, and how they kind of save their football season or continue their football season without that becoming a big distraction, but it just seems hard for that not to become a huge distraction at some point.
And I think, I think now, you know, the last point for me would be for the players is it's gonna be interesting just the interactions.
Like, I, I thi- I think we're all human.
We all know, like, you make a big mistake like that, you start to question how you should be moving and how you should operate.
So it'll just be interesting, you know, I think day by day as you continue to I'm sure he'll keep doing counseling and all those different things.
How does that change you as an individual, as a coach?
All of those things will show up, and I think the team will have to decide, and then ultimately we know whether this all matters.
If the Patriots go out there and they keep winning football games, this will become a smaller distraction on if the Patriots need to react.
If they're not winning football games, then this will be something.
And no matter what happens next, it'll be talked about even more because your success and the results matter in this league.
because i- if, if they didn't come off a Super Bowl appearance this year and they didn't have such a g- if they didn't have a great season like they had, this could still be a different conversation right now in the off-season
