On Tuesday, two players were set to speak with the media after the start of the voluntary offseason program; however, it was announced shortly before that, instead, it would be head coach Mike Vrabel addressing reporters.
This is the first time he publicly addressed the situation involving Dianna Russini after the two were photographed together at a hotel in Arizona during the NFL’s annual league meeting. Russini has since spoken out and has also resigned from her position with The Athletic amid an investigation into the incident.
But until Tuesday, Vrabel had remained quiet.
Here’s What Mike Vrabel Said
“Thank you for your patience that you’ve shown in a personal and private matter for me and obviously everybody involved. I know that that’s not easy for you and I respect that and appreciate your efforts in doing so,” he began.
“I understand I could have addressed you guys sooner, but it was important to me to have a conversation with the players, which I did yesterday, very candidly as we began our offseason program, which everyone is excited to be a part of. Stacey had mentioned the players’ availability and it was never my intention to have them speak with you or address you before I did, so I asked him to come today and talk with you.
“I also don’t want to take away from the draft, the weekend of the draft. This is an important time for us, our organization, and the excitement and the joy that those players are going to have that we bring onto our football team, they are starting an amazing journey. One that should be celebrated as we welcome them on to our team.
“With that being said, I’ve had some difficult conversations with people that I care about, with my family, the organization, the coaches, the players. Those have been positive and productive. We believe in order to be successful on and off the field you have to make good decision. That includes me. That starts with me. We never want our actions to negatively effect the team. We never want to be the cause of a distraction. And those are comments and questions that I’ve answered with the team and we’ll keep those private, to ourselves.
“I care deeply about this football team and I’m excited to coach them. I also know that I’m going to attack each day with humility and focus and what I can promise you is, my family, this organization, the team, the staff, the coaches, everybody, our fans most importantly, will get the best version of me going forward. That’s what I know and I’m excited about that. But I wanted to just address this and thank you for your patience in dealing with a private and personal matter.”
Mike Vrabel Fielded A Few Questions About The Situation After His Statement
Q: Dianna resigned from her job as a result of the Page Six story involving you. I’m just wondering if you had any thoughts you could share about her.
Vrabel: “I respect and I appreciate every single question, but I’m not going to be able to comment on anything as it relates to that. I appreciate your job and what you guys have to do, but I have to make my comments and what I answer about our football team.”
Q: Did your players have any questions for you?
Vrabel: “I’ve had conversations and questions. I’ve addressed that and talked to them, and again, I’ve told them all the time, we have to speak for ourselves and what they have to say on it is what they’ll have to say on it. We talked and again, there’s a lot of excitement in this new building. These guys are off to a really good start. I know it’s only been two days, but that was how we started the offseason program was a conversation that I had with them.”
Q: You are an emotional guy, was that conversation difficult for you.
Vrabel: “No, not difficult. I have to lead. I have to make sure that I address things and communicate and I do that with everything we do. So, we’ve got a great group of guys and we’re excited to teach them. We’re excited to help them. We’re preparing for a journey, is what we talked about. And that journey takes a lot of different twists and turns, positively as we saw last year, and also at times, negatively. There’s going to be bumps along the way. So we talked to them about preparing for the journey.”
Q: Was there any fear about this being a distraction and is there a fear going forward?
Vrabel: “Well, again, we talked about distractions. We have to be able to handle everything that comes our way. So those are things we always talk about, is how we handle those things.”
Q: In your initial statement, you called the initial implications of some of those photos laughable. Is that still the way you feel?
Vrabel: “I appreciate the question. I’m going to focus on our football team. I think, I addressed what I felt like was important. So we’re focusing on our football team and the imporance of teaching these guys, bringing a new team together, 13 new players.”
Q: I know you’ve said you’ve spoken with your players, but how would you characterize your conversations with ownership over the situation?
Vrabel: “Those will be confident. We’ll keep those between us. So again, I understand, and again, I thank you guys for your patience. And just want to focus on the football team and getting off to a good start. And Eliot’s staff, with Ryan and Alonzo and all those guys, we’ve all worked very hard and we’re excited to bring these guys onto our team this week, however we can add them through the draft, the post draft. So it’s important that those players are celebrated. They’re going to have a lot of excitement on Thursday and Friday and Saturday.”
Patriots’ Mike Vrabel Makes First Public Statement Regarding Dianna Russini Controversy