Mike Vrabel has not said a meaningful word in public since April. He has been photographed at airports, spotted at practice, watched his team get trolled by the Los Angeles Chargers in a Halo-themed schedule-release video, and seen a 2021 Tennessee boat rental become a national news story.
For six weeks, the story has spoken for him whether he wanted it to or not. On Friday, someone who has known him for two decades finally decided to speak for him instead.
Albert Breer Speaks Up for Mike Vrabel’s Character as Scandal Continues to Follow Patriots
Sports Illustrated senior NFL writer Albert Breer covered the New England Patriots for the MetroWest Daily News and the Boston Herald from 2005 to 2007, covering Vrabel’s tenure as a starting linebacker for the Patriots after he had won three Super Bowls under Bill Belichick.
When Breer appeared on The Dan Patrick Show on Friday, he spoke about the Patriots’ head coach from that history.
“Mike’s a logical guy. Mike’s a really smart guy,” Breer said. “I think Mike, deep down, is a really good guy. You know, I really believe that. I’ve known him since he was a player. I think it’s, he’s a really good human being, you know, like at his core.”
That kind of personal account has been notably absent from five weeks of coverage largely defined by photo analysis, social media trolling, and escalating speculation. Breer was not minimizing what happened. He was simply drawing a distinction that most coverage has not bothered to make, between what a person does and who a person is.
He was equally direct about what Vrabel cannot avoid once training camp opens and the cameras arrive, especially before the season opener against the Seattle Seahawks.
“I think it becomes the elephant in the room if you don’t address it,” Breer said. “And then I think the other piece of it is just kind of like if you want to keep it in a football context, it is relatively easy. Like, how did this affect the way that you did your job in April, May, and June? And how did it affect your relationship with your players?”
Those questions have no clean answer yet. Vrabel issued one statement after the initial Sedona photos broke, acknowledged difficult conversations with his family, and went quiet. Dianna Russini resigned from The Athletic on April 14 before the outlet’s investigation concluded and has not spoken publicly since.
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Her former Scoop City podcast co-host Chase Daniel described the situation on The Jim Rome Show Thursday as “quite the assignment” before declining to go any further.
The story itself has not slowed down in their absence. TMZ published documents on May 6 showing Vrabel and Russini rented a private boat together in Putnam County, Tennessee, in June 2021 while she was pregnant, a report that immediately drew scrutiny given its proximity to her reporting on the Titans’ trade for Julio Jones from Atlanta that same summer.
A second set of Page Six photographs published on April 23 showed the pair at a New York bar in March 2020, six months before Russini married Shake Shack executive Kevin Goldschmidt.
The Patriots’ Mother’s Day post on May 10 drew an immediate wave of social media trolling, and Mike Florio also floated the possibility of an NDA.
And through all of it, Vrabel has remained the head coach of the Patriots. Breer’s read is that Vrabel understands exactly what is waiting for him. “I think he understands that this sort of question is going to come,” he said.
The September 9 opener against the Seattle Seahawks on national television will be the first time most people see Vrabel on the sideline since all this started. How he handles what comes before kickoff will matter as much as what happens during the game itself.
