New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel suggested he could be forced to take more time away from the team amid the fallout from his alleged affair with NFL reporter Dianna Russini.
During a press conference on Wednesday, May 27, Vrabel, 50, was asked if he anticipates “having to miss football activities again for the rest of the spring.” (Vrabel missed Day 3 of the NFL Draft last month to attend counseling with his wife, Jen.)
“I can only tell you that I’m going to be there today,” Vrabel told reporters. “I can’t tell you anything other than I’m going to be out there today in full force. Who knows what’s going to come up? I’m not even, you know, anything could happen.”
Vrabel was asked directly about the “distraction” the Russini scandal has caused, and whether he thinks he’s been able to “mitigate” the outside noise.
“We all have to deal with things outside of here,” he said. “My focus and obviously the excitement that I have for coaching is what is most important right now.”
In early April, Page Six published photos of Vrabel and Russini — who has been married to her husband, Kevin Goldschmidt, since September 2020 — hugging and sharing a hot tub at a luxury resort in Arizona.
Both Vrabel and Russini vehemently denied a romantic relationship at the time, though Vrabel seemingly backtracked later that month as more evidence of an affair came to light through the publication of additional photos and videos of the two together, dating as far back as March 2020.
“My family is great,” Vrabel told reporters on Wednesday. “I love Jen, I love the boys.”
Vrabel and his wife, whom he tied the knot with in 1999, share sons Tyler, 25, and Carter, 24.
Right before the start of the 2026 NFL Draft last month, Vrabel announced he would be briefly stepping away from the team to attend counseling out-of-state, which forced him to miss the third and final day of proceedings.
“I promised my family, this organization and this team that I was going to give them the best version of me that I can possibly give them. In order to do so, I have committed to seeking counseling, starting this weekend,” Vrabel said in a statement at the time. “This is something that I have given a lot of thought to and is something I would advise a player to do if I was counseling them.”
Vrabel was asked on Wednesday about how his players have “responded to your leadership” in the aftermath of the Russini scandal.
“I don’t want to speak for the players,” Vrabel said. “I feel great. I feel like I’m trying to give them the information that will help them do their job. I’ve talked about this, as far as the balance between their own success, which leads to great things for them and the people that they care about, but then also trying to manage that with the team.”
He added, “That’s a fine balance of the dynamic that we wage in this business of professional sports. I try to do that each day.”
