New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel declared his love for his wife Jen and their two adult sons while speaking to the media on Wednesday for the first time since stepping away from the team for family counseling.
‘I appreciate my family, I love Jen, I love the boys’ Vrabel said when asked about his work-life balance – something he’s been addressing amid the ongoing Dianna Russini scandal.
The 50-year-old did not brief reporters at the Patriots’ recent rookie minicamp and has not spoken on the record since last month’s NFL Draft, when he finally addressed rumors of an affair with Russini. Vrabel would later take leave from the Patriots on Day 3 of the draft to attend a counseling session with his family.
Asked if he could conceivably take another leave of absence to address his family issues, Vrabel sidestepped the question to insist he’s only focused on ‘today.’
‘I’m gonna be out there in full force,’ Vrabel said before attending the Patriots’ organized team activities (OTAs) in Foxborough.
Controversy erupted in March when the New York Post published suggestive photos of Vrabel fraternizing with Russini at a $2,500-a-night, adults-only retreat in Arizona.
New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel declared his love for his wife Jen and their two adult sons while speaking to the media on Wednesday before organized team activities
Vrabel has been married to his wife, Jen, for over two decades and they have two children
Russini and Vrabel have known each other since her time at ESPN and his with the Titans
While the married Russini has denied any wrongdoing and stood by her reporting on Vrabel, she was placed on leave at The Athletic before ultimately submitting her resignation to the website’s parent company, The New York Times.
In April, the Post followed with pictures purportedly showing Vrabel and Russini kissing at a bar in Manhattan in March of 2020. Russini would later marry Shake Shack executive Kevin Goldschmidt in September of that year and has since given birth to two sons.
The Daily Mail has also published photos of Vrabel and a pregnant Russini renting a boat on a Tennessee lake in 2021, when he was coaching the Titans and she was reporting on the team for ESPN.
Speaking before the first round of the NFL Draft, Vrabel stopped short of explicitly confessing to an affair. However, he did admit to causing ‘a distraction to the people that I care most about, my family, this football team, the organization and our fans.
‘My previous actions don’t meet the standard that I hold myself to,’ he continued in the hours before last month’s draft. ‘They don’t. What I believe is best for the two most important things in my life, my family and this football team, is for us to take the necessary steps to work together and to give them what I told them I’d give them, which the best version of me, and that’s what we’re going to do.’
Vrabel stepped away from the team during the third day of the draft to attend a counseling session, he said, because he was going to prioritize his family over his job going forward.
‘My priorities are my family and this football team – and in that order – and there’s a balance there that I am going to create. My family needs me this weekend and that’s where I’ll be.’
Other than describing the Post’s story as ‘laughable’ in an initial brief statement, Vrabel had been silent on the matter until ostensibly making himself accountable to the public his pre-draft press conference.
Asked about his initial ‘laughable’ comment, Vrabel admitted in April: ‘I think that was, you know, always an attempt to protect your family and I would never be dismissive.
‘But I think my family and this football team are the most important thing, and that’s what I plan to do, and I’m excited about the challenge with both of those things.’
Vrabel and Russini visited a hotel, Ambiente, which is an adults-only venue in Sedona, Arizona
The scandal has obviously thrust the reigning NFL Coach of the Year’s marriage into the spotlight.
Mike and Jen Vrabel were married in 1999 after meeting at Ohio State, where she studied to become a dental hygienist. While he played football for the Buckeyes, Jen was a member of the school’s volleyball team from 1993 until 1996.
A defiant Russini has insisted her resignation does not mean she crossed the line with Vrabel
And as she told The Tennessean in 2018, the two only started going out after she asked a mutual professor for his phone number.
In 2024, the pair celebrated a quarter century of marriage with a trip to Italy that Vrabel described as his ‘first true vacation… maybe ever.’
Previously, Vrabel has admitted to missing important moments in their relationship due to his football career. One such incident occurred in 2001, when their second son, Carter, was born.
‘I’m not proud to say this, but I’m just going to tell you about my wife,’ Vrabel said at a 2018 press conference. ‘She gave birth to Carter, I missed it, I was at practice, she was in Ohio. He came early, he flipped, they had to take her. I showed up four hours late because I was playing football and she was having a baby.’
The couple’s older son, Tyler, played offensive tackle at Boston College before making it on the Atlanta Falcons’ practice squad. Now he’s back working as an assistant coach at Boston College.
