New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel has found himself in very hot water, both literally and figuratively.
The former Super Bowl champ-turned head coach was caught by cameras with the Athletic’s NFL reporter Diana Russini in a hot tub at an exclusive Arizona resort last month, according to Page Six.
Both Vrabel and Russini are married to other people.
The Patriots’ head coach sought to put a damper on the controversy sparked by the pics, claiming his bathing-suit-clad interaction with Russini was “innocent.”
“These photos show a completely innocent interaction and any suggestion otherwise is laughable,” Vrabel told the New York Post. “This doesn’t deserve any further response.”
Russini, who is the senior NFL reporter at the New York Times, also downplayed her Arizona rendezvous with the coach.
“The photos don’t represent the group of six people who were hanging out during the day. Like most journalists in the NFL, reporters interact with sources away from stadiums and other venues.”
While it is entirely normal for reporters to interact with sources outside stadiums, the reported interactions between Vrabel and Russini, according to Page Six, may stretch the conventional norms of journalistic source work.
“A Page Six spy tells us that the pair — both married to other people — had breakfast on the patio of the hotel restaurant around 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 28, before spending a leisurely hour or so together at the pool and lounging side-by-side in a hot tub,” the New York Post reports.
“Our spy spotted Vrabel and Russini again that evening on the private rooftop of one of the hotel’s bungalows, which feature glass walls offering panoramic views of the state’s famed Red Rock formations.
“Roofs are only accessible from the two-person bungalows, which cost up to $2,160 a night.”
While the Post reports that Vrabel and Russini made the trip to the luxury boutique resort in Arizona with other friends, three informants tell Page Six that at no time did they witness the coach and reporter interacting with anyone other than each other.
While the pictures and witness information do not look good for Vrabek or Russini, it looks especially bad for the coach, who just last week told a star Christian player on his team – TreVeyon Henderson – that he needed to get “educated” about being “inclusive” after posting a Bible verse in support of Jaden Ivey.
Ivey, a former Bulls player, had just been waived by his team for speaking out against teams that host Pride Nights.
While he said he “loved” Henderson, he said that his star runner needed to be “educated” because the team needed to be “inclusive.”
If Henderson needs to get educated about what the Bible says about homosexuality (and he doesn’t), then Vrabel, a professed Catholic who has been married for 27 years, might want to “educate” himself on what the Bible has to say about marriage.
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