Dianna Russini’s History Of Scandals With Married NFL Men
Dianna Russini's History Of Scandals With Married NFL Men
On March 28, 2026, Page Six published photos of New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel and NFL reporter Dianna Russini at the Ambiente Resort in Sedona, Arizona. The photos show them holding hands, hugging, and sitting together in a hot tub. They had breakfast together on the patio of the hotel restaurant around 10:30 in the morning.
Vrabel has been married to Jennifer Vrabel since 1999. They met at Ohio State. They have two sons, Tyler and Carter.
Russini has been married to Kevin Goldschmidt, a Shake Shack executive, since 2020.
Both have denied anything inappropriate.
Vrabel told Page Six: “These photos show a completely innocent interaction and any suggestion otherwise is laughable.”
Russini told Page Six: “The photos don’t represent the group of six people who were hanging out during the day. Like most journalists in the NFL, reporters interact with sources away from stadiums and other venues.”
The Athletic’s executive editor, Steven Ginsberg, released a statement backing Russini: “These photos are misleading and lack essential context. Dianna is a premier journalist covering the NFL and we’re proud to have her at The Athletic.”
That’s the story as they tell it. Here’s why it matters even if you take them at their word.
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The Conflict of Interest
Dianna Russini is a senior NFL insider for The Athletic, which is owned by The New York Times. She covers the entire league. Coaching hires, front office moves, team transactions, player contracts, draft decisions. She has been one of the most prominent NFL reporters in the country since joining ESPN in 2015. She left ESPN for The Athletic in August 2023.
Mike Vrabel was hired as the 16th head coach in New England Patriots history on January 12, 2025. Before that, he was the head coach of the Tennessee Titans for six seasons from 2018 to 2023, compiling a 54-45 record before being fired in January 2024, winning NFL Coach of the Year in 2021, and reaching the AFC Championship Game in 2019. He was a three-time Super Bowl champion as a player with the Patriots from 2001 to 2008.
Russini covers the NFL. Vrabel runs an NFL team. Even if the Sedona trip was completely innocent, the optics of a reporter and a head coach holding hands at a luxury resort in the Arizona desert raise a straightforward question: can a reporter objectively cover someone she’s vacationing with?
That’s not a gossip question. That’s a journalism question. And it’s one The Athletic will have to answer regardless of what actually happened in Sedona.
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The 2015 Allegation
This is not the first time Russini has been at the center of this kind of story.
In the summer of 2015, shortly after Russini joined ESPN, Jessica McCloughan, the wife of Washington Redskins general manager Scot McCloughan, posted a series of tweets accusing Russini of having an inappropriate relationship with her husband. The tweets were vulgar and specific. Jessica wrote: “Please tell us how many BJ’s you had to give to get this story?” She referred to Russini as her husband’s “new side chick.”
The Redskins initially claimed the tweets came from a fake account. Jessica McCloughan initially denied writing them. She later admitted she did.
She also publicly apologized. “I deeply apologize for the disparaging remarks about an ESPN reporter on my personal Twitter account,” she said. “The comment was unfounded and inappropriate.”
ESPN defended Russini at the time, calling her “an excellent reporter who should never have to be subjected to such vulgar comments.” No evidence supporting the allegation was ever produced. No investigation resulted in any discipline. Russini continued her career at ESPN for eight more years before leaving for The Athletic.
The allegation was retracted by the person who made it. That matters. But the allegation also exists, and it resurfaced immediately when the Vrabel photos dropped today. Whether that’s fair to Russini or not is a separate conversation. The fact that it happened is part of the public record.
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The Bigger Picture
The NFL has a long, complicated relationship with the reporters who cover it. Access journalism runs the league. Reporters need sources. Coaches and front office executives need favorable coverage, or at least the ability to shape narratives through trusted media members. The line between source and friend has always been blurry.
But holding hands at a luxury resort crosses that blurry line into something more visible. Russini’s defense, that “reporters interact with sources away from stadiums and other venues,” is true as a general statement. Reporters do meet sources in informal settings. That’s part of the job. But most source meetings don’t involve hot tubs at a luxury resort in Arizona. And most source meetings don’t get photographed by Page Six.
The question now is whether The Athletic recuses Russini from any Patriots coverage going forward, and whether anyone at The New York Times, which owns The Athletic, addresses the conflict of interest publicly. So far, the only institutional response has been Ginsberg’s statement calling the photos “misleading.”
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— Game 7 (@game7__) September 4, 2025
What Happens Next
Vrabel is preparing for his second season as the head coach of the New England Patriots. Russini is one of the most connected NFL reporters in the business. The photos are everywhere. The denials are on the record. The 2015 allegation, retracted as it was, is back in the conversation.
Whether anything actually happened in Sedona is something only the people who were there can answer. But the conflict of interest question doesn’t require proof of a relationship. It only requires the appearance of one. And the photos from the Ambiente Resort provide that appearance in high definition.
Both are married. Both say it was innocent. The photos are public. And the NFL world is drawing its own conclusions.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
