The Athletic releases long-awaited internal report on whether Dianna Russini’s relationship with Mike Vrabel affected reporting

Since April, The Athletic has been conducting a review of the work Dianna Russini produced while employed by the company and whether it was affected by her seeming years-long affair with NFL head coach Mike Vrabel.

The long-awaited report, reviewed this week by Awful Announcing, was published Thursday , providing the strongest insight yet into how Russini handled the initial revelations about her relationship with Vrabel — and to what extent that relationship may have affected her work covering the NFL.

Mike Semel, The Athletic's editorial director for standards and editorial quality, looked at 903 written stories, 204 episodes of the Scoop City podcast, and 77 videos contributed to by Russini during her tenure at the outlet. The report states that Semel also reviewed 25 external appearances Russini made, and interviewed 14 other Athletic staffers "who had worked most closely" with Russini.

In total, The Athletic determined that while its editorial standards were upheld, Russini's failure to disclose the conflict of interest with Vrabel stained some work.

"Russini's relationship with Vrabel was in clear violation of The Athletic's standards," the report reads. "Regardless of whether the relationship was romantic, it was a breach and should have been disclosed."

At least one story will be updated with an editor's note following the release of the report. One is a 2023 "What I'm Hearing" piece in which Russini reported on a Tennessee decision to attempt a two-point conversion. The blurb, Semel writes, "does not meet The Athletic's standards of attribution."

Semel recommends that The Athletic make its conflict-of-interest guidelines more "exact," clarify and "strongly enforce" its sourcing standards, and add a meeting with the standards editor to its typical onboarding procedures.

After the report was made public, Russini's former podcast, Scoop City, issued its first post on X in several months. It was a quote tweet of Russini's August 2025 interview with Vrabel that referenced the investigation and how Russini should have disclosed her relationship with Vrabel.

"Subsequent to the publication of this video, an Athletic inquiry into Dianna Russini's journalism determined that Russini should have disclosed the nature of her relationship with Patriots coach Mike Vrabel to her editors. She did not. It's now unclear whether The Athletic would have had the access to Vrabel for this interview had she disclosed their relationship," the post read.

The report also sheds light on the timeline of Russini's internal handling of the April 7 Page Six story containing photos of her and Vrabel at a resort in Sedona, Arizona.

Russini reportedly gave Athletic and New York Times management a heads-up that the Page Six story was coming the day it went out. The NFL insider acknowledged she had a close relationship with Vrabel, but stressed to her superiors that it was "strictly professional." At that time, per the report, Russini claimed there would be no further questionable pictures of her and Vrabel, "because she had never done anything inappropriate." She offered a similar statement to Page Six, though it proved untrue.

The report references a handful of instances of Russini writing about Vrabel in a manner "that in hindsight [is] awkward or even uncomfortable." One is from last season, in the lead-up to Vrabel's return to Tennessee .

"Vrabel is loud, direct and unapologetically himself," Russini wrote. "He's not for everyone."

But The Athletic reviewed other stories previewing that game and determined this was "the story line" of the game, and other outlets were similarly effusive about Vrabel's impact on both the Titans and his new team, the New England Patriots.

Russini resigned from The Athletic on April 14 , a week after the Page Six report. Later, additional photos surfaced showing her and Vrabel spending time together as far back as 2020, including one of them kissing .

The Athletic's initial defense of Russini to Page Six reportedly drew the ire of other staffers. It later launched an internal investigation , which morphed into Semel's review.

The pattern identified in Semel's report, and the timeline put forth by the tabloids, would also incriminate ESPN, where Russini worked from 2015-23. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk previously highlighted a 2021 report from Russini on trade talks around Atlanta's Julio Jones, in which Russini overestimated the market for the star receiver in a way that could have benefited Tennessee, who ultimately acquired him.

Vrabel took time away from the Patriots during the NFL Draft and has said he went to counseling during the offseason.

Both are married with children. Neither has addressed the particular nature of their relationship.