FOXBOROUGH – For the first time since issuing a statement calling the New York Post’s Page Six’s photos of him and Dianna Russini holding hands and hugging “a completely innocent interaction and any suggestion otherwise is laughable,” Mike Vrabel stood at the podium on Tuesday afternoon in Foxborough, making a lengthy statement in front of a half-filled room of media folks (including yours truly) who were expecting to speak with a couple of players instead.
“Let me first begin by saying thank you,” 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 I appreciate your efforts in doing so.
“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 off-season program, which everyone is excited to be a part of. Stacey (James, PR) had mentioned the players’ availability, and it was never my intention to have them speak to you or address you before I did. And so I asked him to come today and talk with you. I also don’t want to take away from our, you know, 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’re starting an amazing journey, one that should be celebrated as we welcome them onto 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. I believe in order to be successful on and off the field, you have to make good decisions. That includes me. That starts with me. We never want our actions to negatively affect the team. We never want to be the cause of a distraction. These are comments and questions that I’ve answered for the team, and with the team, we’ll keep those private and to ourselves. I care deeply about this football team and am 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 that my family, this organization, the team, the staff, the coaches, everybody, our fans, most importantly, will get the best version of me going forward. And that’s what I know. And I’m excited to do that, but I wanted to, one, just address this, and thank you for your patience in dealing with the private and personal matter.”
The cameras were then shut down, Vrabel made his way off the podium, grabbed a chair, and sat in front of 18 or so media members, where he received another handful of questions about the situation. I had two of those, asking the head coach if his players had any questions for him and if those conversations were difficult.
“I’ve had conversations and questions about it, yeah. … I tell 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. We’ve talked and again, there’s a lot of excitement in this new building. These guys are off to a real good start. I know it’s been two days, but that was how we started the off-season program – was a conversation that I had with them.
“I have to lead,” he said to the second question. “I have to make sure I address things and communicate. I do that with everything that we do. We’ve got a great group of guys. We’re excited to teach them. We’re excited to help them. Prepare 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.”
Vrabel declined to answer questions about Russini and his initial statement to the Post, doing so politely. As for whether or not he worried about this being a distraction, he stated, “We have to be able to handle everything that comes our way. Those are things we always talk about.”
My understanding, as Vrabel mentioned in his statement, was that it was discussed as early as last week about
