Questions continue to surround Vrabel
Mike Florio and Chris Simms discuss the latest on the situation involving New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel and reporter Diannia Russini.
Video Transcript
Pft Live, Tuesday edition.
Mike Vrabel was not with the Patriots for a very important day on the off-season schedule, the third day of the draft.
Probably the third-most important day of the entire off-season.
He was absent to be with family and to engage in counseling, and there were conflicting reports within ESPN.
They eventually retracted, and essentially retracted the idea that he was gonna be in constant contact with the Patriots on the third day of the draft.
He was in no contact, but now he's back.
And the aftermath of this thing, and I know the Patriots would love nothing more than to turn the page.
It's their own fault for how they've mishandled this from the get-go.
It continues to be a story because it has been one PR debacle after another, but he's back now, and there's still questions.
I don't think this idea that skipping the third day of the draft to attend counseling ever flew with anyone.
And when you throw in the fact that the New York Post now has photos of Mike Vrabel in Salt Lake City Airport on Saturday, when was the counseling?
Where was the counseling?
What was really going on here?
And I don't wanna go too far down speculation lane, but there's constantly new developments, and it seems like every new development raises more questions, and makes a strange situation, Chris, seem even stranger.
Well, it, it's almost like the situation we started the show.
When the situation's strange and we go, "Wait, what's going on?"
And it doesn't make sense, and it lines up, people start to look, "Wait, what's really going on?
I gotta find out.
This doesn't seem right.
This doesn't smell right," with the Sean McVay-Ty Simpson Rams conversation.
And like you said, they've made missteps here, right?
The Patriots, Vrabel, Russini, and that's just led to everybody digging for more.
Oh, wait, they lied about this.
We found this, and then now it just won't stop.
And then, and then of course because of that, people are digging up every quote that Diane Russini's ever said about anything named Mike or football or whatever, and it's just the gift that keeps on giving.
Because, yeah, when you look at that too, some of the stuff she's said over the years is absolutely crazy.
I mean, when you know the context of this now.
So it's not only like, oh, my gosh, we're finding more information, it's become social media entertainment because you're just, every day you're like, "Whoa!
Holy crap."
And that's where we're at, and yeah, I don't know when the end of this story, you know, ever stops here.
I go back to what Rodney Harrison said Robert Kraft told him when Rodney had an issue with an HGH suspension 19 years ago.
It's always better to tell the truth, and I think in hindsight, instead of circling the wagons, denying and doubling down, someone needed to have a hard conversation with both of them.
And if they're gonna coordinate their stories, the coordination needs to be, we both have to tell the truth.
The time has come.
It's over.
It's over.
And apparently it lasted six years or longer, and now is the time to face the reckoning, and if we fight it, it's only gonna be worse.
That's the lesson to anyone else.
Whatever it is in your life, whatever setting you're in, whatever context you're in, when something that you've maybe been doing that you shouldn't be doing comes to light, that is the time Now, ideally, you don't do the thing you shouldn't be doing.
But when it comes to light, own it.
When you make a mistake, own it.
When you have a problem, solve it.
Stand up and do the right thing, because it's only gonna get worse for you and everyone in your orbit if you try to fight it, and you know in your heart, especially in this day and age, where everyone is Big Brother, and maybe they've already got stuff on their phone from six years ago.
You gotta be, you gotta be able to take a step back and make the right decision.
Yeah.
And I think that's the PR lesson from this one, for anyone that could find themselves in a similar predicament in the future
