After photos emerged of New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel spending time with NFL reporter Dianna Russini at a luxury hotel in Arizona, Russini said the photos were taken out of context and her employer has come to her defense.
In photos published by Page Six on Tuesday, the coach of the Patriots and the reporter for The Athletic are seen hanging out poolside, in a hot tub and on a rooftop deck at the Ambiente luxury hotel in Sedona.
Two of the photos show them with intertwined hands and hugging on the deck. Both Russini and Vrabel are married to other people.
In a statement to NBC News on Wednesday, Athletic Executive Editor Steven Ginsberg said the photos are "misleading and lack essential context."
"These were public interactions in front of many people," Ginsberg said. "Dianna is a premier journalist covering the NFL and we're proud to have her at The Athletic.”
Russini said in her own statement that many reporters in her field interact with "sources" outside of stadiums and work venues.
"The photos don’t represent the group of six people who were hanging out during the day," she said.
A representative for the Patriots did not immediately respond to a request for comment from NBC News.
Vrabel denied any allegation of impropriety in a statement to Page Six. “These photos show a completely innocent interaction and any suggestion otherwise is laughable," he said. "This doesn’t deserve any further response.”
Page Six offered conflicting accounts from anonymous sources as to Vrabel and Russini's time together at the hotel. An unnamed friend of the coach told the outlet that the two of them were staying a couple of hours away and drove up to meet Russini, who was staying in Sedona on a trip with her friends.
Vrabel was in Tempe, Arizona, for a scouting event at Arizona State University on March 27, Page Six said.
Other witnesses, who were also unnamed, told Page Six that they did not see Vrabel or Russini with other people.
"No, he was with a girl," one witness told Page Six when asked if they saw Vrabel with a group of friends.
Vrabel is a former NFL linebacker turned coach who previously played with the Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs and Pittsburgh Steelers before his 2011 retirement. He turned to coaching, starting out at his alma mater at Ohio State University.
He returned to the Patriots as a head coach last year and brought the team back to the Super Bowl for the first time in seven years. The team suffered a brutal 29-13 loss against the Seattle Seahawks after failing to score a single point until the fourth quarter.
Russini, who worked as a reporter for NBC New York early in her career, is considered one of the industry's top NFL reporters. She left ESPN in 2023 for a job as the Athletic's football insider.
She was described as being "one of the highest-paid writers in the history of the ... New York Times," which owns the Athletic, by NBC Sports writer Peter King.
"Russini’s rep at ESPN was as a football firebrand and good beat reporter with a growing list of sources," King wrote at the time. "Tireless, tough, lover of the game."
