Dianna Russini is lining up a sports media comeback — and she already has options.
Five months after resigning from The Athletic amid photos with New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel, the former senior NFL insider is “absolutely” planning a return and has been in talks on several jobs, ranging from pro football insider work to an opinion/personality role, sources told Front Office Sports on Thursday.
Russini has not chosen a landing spot. With the NFL regular season six days away, she is expected to move sooner rather than later, the report said.
The timing is not accidental. The New York Times-owned Athletic on Thursday released the findings of its nearly five-month internal review. Investigators said her personal relationship with Vrabel was a “clear violation” of company standards and should have been disclosed. They also said they found “scant evidence” the relationship skewed her coverage of Vrabel or the two teams he coached — the Patriots and the Tennessee Titans.
That mix — ethics breach, limited proof of biased copy — is the opening Russini’s camp needed.
The review was extensive. Editors examined 903 stories and 77 videos carrying Russini’s byline or contributor credit, 204 episodes of her Scoop City podcast, 25 off-platform appearances, and interviews with 14 colleagues. They compared 75 Athletic pieces involving Vrabel or his teams with coverage at rival outlets.
The conclusion: most of her work had nothing to do with Vrabel. Of the 903 pieces, about 5 percent touched him or his clubs. Of those that did, many were transactional — trades, hires, roster news. None were exclusive scoops. Four editor’s notes were added to one written story and three videos that did not meet standards.
Standards editor Mike Semel did not give her a clean bill of health. He flagged passages that, in hindsight, read “awkward or even uncomfortable,” including language that called Vrabel “New England’s hero.” He also said Russini waited two days to tell managers that Page Six had confronted her with the Sedona photos, then offered an explanation “that did not align with facts, raising issues of trust.”
Still, Semel wrote he found no clear link that she used the platform to promote Vrabel or his teams.
Page Six published the photos April 7: Russini and Vrabel holding hands, embracing, and sitting in a hot tub at Ambiente, an adults-only resort in Sedona, Arizona. Both are married to other people. Both initially called the scene innocent. Vrabel labeled other interpretations “laughable.”
The Athletic first defended her. A week later, on April 14, Russini resigned. Her contract ran through June 30. In a letter she posted publicly, she said she would not “lend further oxygen” to a media frenzy she said was unmoored from facts, and that she stood behind every story she had published.
Additional images later surfaced that appeared to show the pair together as far back as 2020. The Athletic’s Thursday report said it did not investigate her personal life because she was no longer an employee.
Vrabel kept his job. The Patriots backed him. He has said he has moved on and is focused on the season.
Russini, 43, was one of the highest-paid journalists in the Times Company orbit. A former manager told The New York Times her Athletic salary was close to $800,000. She spent eight years at ESPN before joining The Athletic in August 2023 as its face-of-the-brand NFL insider.
Who wants her now
The marketplace is not treating this like a career-ending offense.
Front Office Sports identified Barstool Sports as the lead candidate. Russini is close with Pardon My Take hosts Dan “Big Cat” Katz and PFT Commenter and has been a frequent guest. Dave Portnoy previously called hiring her a “no-brainer.” Even if there was an affair, he said, that is “not like a capital offense that should end somebody’s professional career.”
Fox Sports Radio host Jon “Stugotz” Weiner has kept an open-ended offer on the table since May: if she wants back in, she has a seat on his show. “The offer holds forever,” he said.
Former Athletic colleague Mike Silver said last week he expects her back in the football conversation “pretty soon,” though probably not immediately as a traditional insider. Matthew Berry has also described her as talented and on-air ready if the fit and money work.
Traditional network newsrooms are a harder sell. ESPN, NBC, and CBS-style shops tend to treat conflict-of-interest headlines as radioactive. Personality-driven shops — Barstool, independent radio, podcasts, gambling-adjacent platforms — care more about voice, access, and audience.
That split is the real story. The Athletic said the relationship should have been disclosed. Competitors still want the reporter who spent a decade inside locker rooms, coaches’ meetings, and the rumor mill.
The double standard question
Vrabel is on the Patriots sideline this week. Russini has been off the air since mid-April.
That gap is why the job-offer chatter matters. Sports media has long tolerated tight source relationships among male insiders. Photos of a female reporter in a hot tub with a married coach detonated in a way a golf outing or late dinner often does not. The Athletic’s own review conceded most of her copy was unrelated and transactional. The damage was the appearance, the nondisclosure, and the two-day delay in telling her bosses the photos were coming.
Russini has not publicly detailed the relationship beyond early denials. She told The Times in June the episode had a “significant impact” professionally and personally.
Whether her next role is breaking news, talking head, or Barstool chaos, the demand is already there. Multiple shops are bidding on a reporter The Athletic just said did not, in the main, cook the books for Mike Vrabel.
The season starts Sunday. She is expected to pick a lane before the noise dies down.
