Tony Farmer took aim at Dianna Russini’s old Mike Vrabel reporting this week, revisiting a 2025 interview segment that drew fresh scrutiny after later allegations about her role in Vrabel’s job search.
Farmer, a San Francisco 49ers insider, had already gone back about a month ago to Russini’s discussion of the New York Jets’ head coach hiring process while she was still with The Athletic. In that segment, she described how Vrabel’s interview supposedly changed everything.
“The next day Mike Vrabel came in, blew the doors off. ... They were ready to hire him.
They were gonna do anything to they needed to do, including giving him full roster control and essentially the power to just report to the owner. ... He liked Woody.
He liked what they were about.”
Later that same month, the New York Times reported that Russini had been Vrabel’s “unofficial advisor” during his job search. Farmer followed up on Tuesday with a blunt reaction.
“IMO, she sounds like Vrabel’s publicist here.”
Russini has faced plenty of criticism over her affair with Vrabel, both before and after her resignation, though she has also had defenders. One of them is Dan Le Batard.
Le Batard has mostly stayed quiet on the situation, even while he has criticized others, including Michael Strahan, over issues such as Chris Johnson’s ALS diagnosis. On his eponymous show last Thursday, he addressed the backlash he has taken for not speaking more directly about Russini.
“I know that this is something that people are now holding up whenever they think I’m sanctimonious or doing anything that they find an opening to criticize me on. They’re like, ‘You’re being a hypocrite here, you weren’t willing to talk about that.’ I wouldn’t say it’s hypocrisy, I would say it’s inconsistent if you want to call me that.”
He added:
“It’s fair criticism to say, ‘Dan, you should talk about Russini.’ It’s a consequence of me saying, ‘No I will not.'
Because everyone is saying for me how wrong it is. You don’t need me adding to that pile of criticism to make my friend’s life a little bit worse. ...
You want to hold it against me for the rest of my life, totally understandable.”
Russini has not said much about her journalistic future since resigning.
In Other News...
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One possible path is a trade, especially if a tight end sitting behind a star on another depth chart becomes available. The Raiders have reasons to listen, and New England has the kind of draft capital and young receiver talent that could help grease a deal, but the real question is whether the Patriots are willing to pay enough to get the kind of player they need at a spot that suddenly feels a lot more urgent. [Read more 🡒]
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The bigger backdrop is what happened in Super Bowl LX, where Campbells performance only added to the scrutiny that had started building late in the season. There had been plenty of noise about whether his best long-term fit might be somewhere else on the line, but New England has made clear it views him as a tackle and expects him to keep working on the blindside job the Patriots drafted him to handle. [Read more 🡒]
CBS Just Gave Drake Maye Another Patriots Fans Wont Forget
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The comparison at the top of the list only sharpens the debate, with Matthew Stafford landing above Maye despite the Patriots quarterbacks standout season. CBS pointed to the difference in surrounding conditions, noting Maye took more sacks and worked with a less effective receiving corps than Stafford did, and that context will matter again as New England keeps trying to build a more complete offense around him. [Read more 🡒]