Mike Vrabel didn’t wait long to make his presence felt in his first Patriots game since the offseason scandal that followed him into New England. On the sideline against the Indianapolis Colts, the head coach blew up at a call, flung the red challenge flag with both feet planted and his whole body coiled, and instantly turned a routine preseason moment into a viral clip.
The play itself came with Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson losing the ball after Patriots linebacker KJ Britt knocked it loose. Officials initially ruled Richardson down by contact before the ball came free, and Vrabel clearly wanted another look. His challenge changed the ruling: the call was overturned, the play was ruled a fumble, and the Patriots got the ball.
That was enough for social media to go to work. The Patriots’ video of the throw piled up more than a million views, and the comments quickly veered into jokes about Vrabel’s alleged affair with former NFL insider Dianna Russini. One user wrote, “A lot of pent up frustration there,” while another said, “He tossed that like he tossed his wedding ring when Diana [sic] Russini comes around.”
Other comments followed the same line. “That's just like he threw his phone out the car window when his wife wanted to read those Russini texts,” one post read.
Another said, “Mike Vrabel had 4 months of pent-up aggression on this throw.” There was also, “Pretended it was evidence against him and Diana [sic].”
A meme account added, “Mike Vrabel to his phone when his wife asks why Dominos is texting him at 3am in the morning.”
The offseason story that shadowed Vrabel began when the New York Post published suggestive photos of him and Russini together by themselves at an adults-only retreat in Arizona. More images later surfaced in other outlets, including Daily Mail photos of the two on a boat in Tennessee in 2021. Russini, who is married, denied any wrongdoing and defended her reporting on Vrabel, but she was later placed on leave at The Athletic before eventually resigning to The New York Times’ parent company.
Vrabel was also asked about the personal side of that stretch earlier in the week. On Tuesday, an ESPN reporter asked, “What did you learn from that counseling and how did you balance that personal commitment with getting ready for this season?”
Vrabel answered by steering the focus back to improvement, saying, “I think we always look at improvement. As we talk about getting ready for the next season, we always look at improvement and ways that we can improve individually and how we can improve as a team.
'It's really critical that we continue to do that, on and off the field. I believe in that. I believe in everything we can do to help this football team, to help our coaches, to help myself and everybody else included.'
He added: 'This journey that we're going to go on is going to be completely different than the one we went on last year. That's all of our jobs to prepare for it now.'
The previously embattled head coach continued by suggesting he is 'really focused on our improvement individually and as a team'."
The night itself ended without a winner. New England and Indianapolis finished the preseason game tied 13-13.
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