Intro for April 27, 2026

Dear Gossips,

The NFL Draft occurred over the last few days, and while I don’t pay much attention to professional football, the draft has continued fueling a gossip story from the world of football, and that is the affair between New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel and sports reporter Dianna Russini.

Page Six has been all over this story, because if there is one thing the New York media likes, it’s taking the Boston sports teams down a peg (Heated Rivalry but for J-school grads). They first reported on Vrabel and Russini being seen together at an Arizona resort, then they dug up a photo from six years ago that suggest Vrabel and Russini have been dealing with each other for a while, and now Vrabel is trying to keep the focus on the Patriots through the long draft weekend but like…no thank you, sir. Your draft picks are not that interesting.

Over the weekend I got into multiple real-world conversations about this story, which tells me how big this story is because no one in my immediate circle of friends really cares about football beyond Taylor Swift’s boyfriend. But everyone is talking about Mike Vrable and Dianna Russini, who used to be on ESPN and is now a “senior NFL insider” for the New York Times’s sports outlet, The Athletic.

The comparison was made to the Coldplay kiss cam couple, and while that was certainly a monocultural moment for the internet, at the end of the day, leaving aside any judgment on infidelity, the Coldplay kiss cam couple were private citizens. Their affair was, ultimately, an issue for their families and their shared workplace, but the rest of us were just being Nosy Nellies who didn’t really have a horse in the race. But I objected when someone compared Vrable and Russini to the Coldplay couple—whose names I can’t even remember without googling because they were not public figures—because Dianna Russini is a reporter with an expectation of professional ethics when it comes to her reporting.

Is sports reporting important? I would argue no, not any more than celebrity reporting. But she is paid to cover football teams, including the Patriots, for a journalistic outlet with a semblance of professional ethics. An affair with a coach compromises those ethics. It’s akin to Olivia Nuzzi having relationships and/or affairs with the politicians she is reporting on, it’s inherently compromising to the work. To the public interest, a journalist sleeping with a subject is a bigger deal than two private citizens getting caught in an affair.

One of my friends was annoyed that I don’t bring the same heat to celebrity affairs as I am to the football affair—Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz had dual relationship overlaps happening when they got together, and they’re one of my favorite celebrity couples—but my defense was that neither of them is a journalist reporting on the other. Ultimately, while they are famous, there’s no professional ethical issue. My sticking point is that Dianna Russini was paid to cover football teams while apparently carrying out a multi-year affair with the coach of one of those teams.

The question I have for you, gossips, is the one that was posed to me over the weekend. Is there a difference? Or is a perceived difference just an excuse for prurient interest? I don’t care about football, but I am following the Vrabel/Russini story, is that hypocritical? And IS it different from Olivia Nuzzi’s multiple compromising relationships with subjects, because sports reporting isn’t as important as political journalism? I guess what I’m asking is, do degrees of difference matter in gossip? 

Live long and gossip,

Sarah