Questions continue to follow Vrabel and Russini

Mike Florio and Michael Holley break down the ongoing situation between Mike Vrabel and Dianna Russini, analyzing how it impacts the Patriots head coach and the reporter.

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There's two different ways to look at this, and I think the way that the Patriots fans would prefer to look at it is this: it's just further confirmation of something we already know.

We already know.

We already know they had an affair.

We don't need to have further proof of it.

But I think the more practical reality is that in a story where we have had no way of expecting whatever is coming next, who would've had on the bingo card, what sort of Mad Libs puzzle would you have to figure out to have photos of the two of them at a marina at some lake in Tennessee from June of 2021, and then the next day a video of an extremely pregnant Diana Russini walking down the dock with Mike Vrabel in his, you know, that kind of strut that he's got?

You know, the w- who would've expected that?

And that just proves the point.

Expect the unexpected.

When you least expect it, expect it.

Right.

Because people are out there digging, digging through anything they can find.

People are looking through their phones.

Anybody.

They're, th- there's a, a financial incentive for TMZ and the New York Post to get anything they can, and the point is, we never know what is gonna be that one thing that just makes this untenable.

Not from the perspective of the Patriots fans who would say, "It's just further confirmation of an affair."

Think about this.

Put yourself in this situation.

If this happens to you, if this happen And I'm not wishing it on anyone, and I'm sure it's happened to some people out there, but I would suspect that at some point the other party to the Vrabel marriage has handed her spouse a pad of paper and a pen and said, "Write down every time that you have been with this person since March of 2020, and leave none of them out.

I want the whole story of what happened."

That's a reasonable Now look, I'm Part of me is like, oh, you know what, we really shouldn't talk about that, and part of me is like, that's exactly what a normal person would be dealing with, okay?

Let's assume this is normal.

A normal reaction to this would be, faced with all this evidence, I wanna know every time you were with her.

I wanna know where, I wanna know when, I wanna know it all, or pack your shit and go.

I think that's a normal reaction to the situation.

And so who knows what comes out that may contradict the story that was told when the opportunity was given to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth once and for all.

That's one side of it, Michael, and the other side of it is what we talked about last Friday, and continues to loom over all of this.

When's she gonna tell her story?

Where is she gonna tell- Right her story, and what is she gonna say?

What will she say?

And as you said last week, she holds all the cards in that regard, and one sentence is enough to make it impossible for him to continue as the head coach of the Patriots.

That, and the, the whole Like, if the, as I said earlier, if the personal situation becomes so demanding of his time and his effort to fix it, you can't We're talking about officials, full-time officials, two different jobs.

Devin and I were talking about that the other day.

There's no way a coach can be distracted from that job that requires his full focus for seven months out of the year, and most of his focus for most of the rest of the year.

That's the thing.

This, this reaches a point where it just cannot keep going.

Well, y- you mentioned the reaction of, of, of a normal person, going through this at home.

That's the personal side of it.

How about the professional side?

How about the reaction of your boss?

A- and Robert Kraft and Jonathan Kraft, they are Mike Vrabel's bosses.

So what has he said to his bosses?

And what do, what, what do they wanna know?

Are they putting their heads in the sand?

I don't think so.

So did he tell them there's nothing else?

Did he tell them there's nothing else after the Tribeca photos?

Anything else?

Am I, Mike, anything else?

Anything else?

Nope.

It's over now.

That's it.

Okay, I'm telling you Tribeca.

And then there's something else that comes out, a- every time something comes out, did they have this on their tablet, on their legal notepad, did Robert Kraft go to look down and say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, he told me about this.

Yeah, yeah.

yeah, I already knew.

I already knew that, he was out in, Tennessee in 2021 on a boat with a very pregnant Diana Russini.

You know, that doesn't surprise me"?

And, and I think that's the other thing, too.

Where you get to the point where, where Kra- where the Krafts get to the point and say, "Well, wait a minute.

You didn't necessarily tell me this," or, "You told me part of the story.

You didn't tell me the whole story."

And even if he did tell them everything, they know that, but they can't control how the Once you, you have the information, but then, okay, release it to the public.

Now it's out of your control again.

Maybe you know the information, but you don't know how the public is gonna respond to it.

You don't know how your team is gonna respond to it, how these things are just gonna keep coming back and gonna keep coming back, and hovering.

It now, it, it hovers over the franchise.

How long do they wanna deal with it?

Because it's not just Mike Vrabel.

Every time Mike Vrabel comes up for the Patriots, and Robert Kraft can't love this, every time something comes up with Vrabel, there are some writers, and Nancy Armour is the latest, in USA Today-Hey, well, of course this would happen with the Patriots.

Of course, the Patriots are okay with this because there's Spygate and Deflategate and the owner had his situation, in Florida.

It, it always, it, it unleashes all the other sins of, of the Patriots past.

And how I- is that good for business?

I mean, I guess.

I guess it could be.

You could interpret it that way and say, "At least they're talking about us."

But I don't think this is the kind of PR that the Patriots are looking for.

Well, it sets up an us-against-the-world mentality to the extent that Patriots fans have morphed into the posture of, "It was just an affair.

We know it was an affair.

Everything else is noise."

And I That's a reasonable reaction.

I'm not saying it's unreasonable.

But I think the more pragmatic view is this personal issue has become a football issue by virtue of Mike Vrabel issuing two statements draft week, and missing the third day of the draft to go to counseling in Salt Lake City after he stopped at the airport to buy a sweatsuit.

I don't know.

That- it- there are so many weird things about this.

And that underscores the reality, too, that it crossed over into the Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan territory.

Not that it's ever going to be as big as that story was, but once it becomes fodder for the paparazzi, that's another complicating factor.

Everywhere he goes, it's gonna be somebody taking his picture.

It's gonna be somebody asking the hostile questions.

That guy a couple weeks ago, I mean, I'm surprised Vrabel didn't just turn with the forearm shiver.

Of course, that's what the guy wanted, for both business reasons- Right and legal reasons.

Although, no, no, no lawsuit is better than your health.

Don't invite getting beat up by some guy who's really big and really strong- just so you could sue him.

It's far better to have all your teeth.

Yeah.

But, but- And big- bigger than- that is now part of his narrative bigger than, bigger than you think.

E- even, even though he's that- Yes and you know this, Mike, 'cause you've, you've, you've talked with him, many times, yeah, he's bigger than you think.

And you think he's big on TV.

No, in person.

When we're talking every bit of 6'5", at this point, you know, he played around 250, 260.

At this point, 265, 270.

I, I, I don't think you want it.

You, you don't want it.

'cause he knows And- It, it's not just the, the, the size.

He knows how to, he knows how to use his size.

So, yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't wanna- And- get into a rumble with him.

This has all become fodder for the tabloids, fodder for the gossip shows, fodder for mainstream conversation.

Hell, where was it?

I think on Bill Maher's show there was a reference to Vrabel a couple of weeks ago in the monologue.

There was a bit on The Daily Show the other night.

Before the, the To If By Sea photos came out.

Right.

Before that, they had a whole bit on The Daily Show about it.

So it's crossed over, and that's not good for anybody, and that's not good for business, and these are all the things that the people involved need to take into consideration.

And ultimately, the question is this, before we break, because we must: Will this affect the ability of Mike Vrabel to be the absolute best coach he can be?

There's gonna be no way of knowing for sure, but I'll tell you what's gonna happen.

If they start losing games this year, and that schedule's a lot tougher this year, do you think that the talk is going to get louder, or do you think it's gonna get quieter?

So all to be determined, all to be seen, and through it all, we never know what the next development is going to be.

We have no idea where it's gonna come from, although we can narrow it down to TMZ and the New York Post.

We have no idea what the context will be, but there's going to be something, and at some point, she's gonna tell her story.

At some point between now and the end of this decade, she's gonna tell her story.

And what it is is going to be a factor in whether or not Mike Vrabel can continue, not because he gets fired, but because he looks at the situation and says, "At a minimum, I need to take a year off."

That's the one thing that I'm watching for, not a permanent resignation.

Step down for a year.

Josh McDaniels takes over as interim coach for a year, and then they see if this all dies down in a year and Vrabel can come back.

'Cause they don't wanna lose the guy.

The guy's a great coach.

That's what's so weird about this.

He's such a great coach.

And to be involved in something that And I, I posed this question to you last night.

Like, I've said this before.

How, how can a guy that smart do something this stupid?

And by stupid, I mean just completely indiscreet, walking around out in the open, at the bar in New York, signing their names on the sheet.

And just come up with a different name.

Have her come up with a different name.

Let her be Mrs. Vrabel.

I mean, there's no effort to conceal it.

That's what makes it all so weird.

I How did they not think that at some point, Michael, and I know we have to break, but how could you not think at some point- Yeah someone's gonna find out about this?

Well, but see, that's one of the, the strengths.

I mean, the, the clich is gift and a curse, but it really is.

You know, clichs exist for a reason, 'cause th- they, they're, they tr- they're true.

So the gift of Mike Vrabel is that, yeah, he's got, zero F's to give, j- in general.

As, as a player he was like that.

Playing for Bill Belichick, he was the one guy who could, who could, you know, go back and forth with Belichick in a team meeting and didn't believe in the, "Hey, do your job" all the time without "And keep your mouth shut."

He didn't.

He'd give it back to the coaches.

He'd give it to Tom Brady, you know?

He would just He- that's Mike Vrabel.

He's unfiltered.

He is unpredictable.

It's just who he is.

But that's the weakness, too.

The weakness was that, "Hey, whatever.

I'll just, I, I, I am who I am."

And so he's out there.

Would He, he probably should be a little bit more discreet, but that's not who he is.

That's not who he is.

And, and I'll say quickly, the other thing is, and, I found this out during the season.

Now, this is a different context.

I, I And I said to somebody here in Boston, I said, "Look, Vrabel's gonna get in trouble.

He thinks he knows more than the media.

He thinks he knows the media better than the media."

He's almost like a ombudsman, you know, at times when he's giving his press conferences.

I'm like, "Well, you don't You're good, but you don't know more than the media."

And so came back to bite him.

He thought he could kinda talk down the media when this first came out with the New York Post, and that came back to bite him in a big way.

That was a huge mistake of, he thought he could just say, "This is laughable, and I'm not gonna talk about it anymore."

Well, you're still gonna talk about it, and you're gonna talk about it for a while.

It's not They, they know more than you do.

It's their full-time job.

Your full-time job should be coaching.

and there, and there is a big difference between those two worlds.

I'm not sure of many things, but I am sure of this: No competent PR professional is ever going to recommend using the term laughable in connection with an effort to take the steam out of any story from this point until the end of time, however far or short from now that may be

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