Exclusive photos obtained by Page Six appear to show the New England Patriots‘ head coach Mike Vrabel and the New York Times’ top NFL reporter holding hands and hugging at a luxurious hotel.
Vrabel and Dianna Russini — a former anchor on ESPN’s flagship “SportsCenter” who now holds the official title of “senior NFL insider” at the Gray Lady’s sports publication, the Athletic — were spotted two weekends ago at the Ambiente in Sedona, Arizona, a boutique resort set against the breathtaking Brins Mesa mountain range.
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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.
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.
Photos show the two hugging at sunset, and weaving their fingers together as they stand face-to-face. The spy said they saw the pair briefly dance together.
Both Russini and Vrabel insist they were there with friends and say they simply weren’t visible in the pictures. A source close to Russini says she was staying at the hotel during a hiking trip with two female pals. One of Vrabel’s friends told Page Six that they and the coach drove up to Sedona for the day with another pal and that they all drove back to their own hotel, some two hours away, after hanging out with Russini and her gang.
But three other eyewitnesses told us that they did not see anyone else with Vrabel, 50, and Russini, 43. Asked if the Pats coach visited the hotel with a group of friends, one eyewitness said: “No, he was with a girl.” And our sequence of photographs taken at various points during the day show only Vrabel and Russini.
Vrabel attended a scouting event at Arizona State University in Tempe on Friday, March 27, before traveling 125 miles to the Ambiente.
The adults-only Ambiente prides itself on being a romantic getaway, boasting on its website about the 158 proposals that took place and the thousands of anniversaries and honeymoons that have been celebrated at the hotel.
After being seen with Russini, Vrabel headed to the Biltmore hotel in Phoenix for a meeting of the NFL Competition Committee, a group of owners and coaches who oversee the game’s rulebook.
Russini was among many NFL reporters at the Biltmore on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday of last week when media had access to owners, executives and coaches.
On Thursday, the Athletic published a dispatch about the Biltmore meetings written by Russini and Jacob Robinson.
Russini has been one of the more prominent football reporters in the country for more than a decade and routinely covers the Patriots as part of the gig.
She joined “SportsCenter” in 2015 and has appeared on ESPN’s popular “NFL Countdown” and “NFL Live” shows.
In 2023, she joined the Athletic, the once-independent site that was acquired by the Times and now provides the paper’s sports coverage. Russini hosts its “Scoop City: Inside the NFL” podcast.
Vrabel, who played eight seasons as a linebacker for the Patriots, took over as the team’s top coach in January 2025 and stunned the league by taking the team to the Super Bowl this year.
The six-time Super Bowl-winning Patriots are ranked by Forbes as the fourth most valuable team in the NFL, worth around $9 billion with an annual revenue of $762 million. Vrabel is believed to earn around $15 million a year.
He and Russini go way back.
Covering the Tennessee Titans was Russini’s first NFL beat at ESPN. She was the network’s boots on the ground in Nashville by the time Vrabel came in as head coach in 2018.
“They went from being [a team] nobody thought about to Mike got them playing really well,” she said of the 2018 Titans on the “Patriots Unfiltered” podcast in February. “And then, of course, they went to the AFC championship game” in 2020.
In 2015, Russini weathered a controversy when the wife of the Washington Commanders (then the Redskins) GM Scot McCloughan publicly accused them of having an affair.
After the reporter broke a story about Kirk Cousins replacing Robert Griffin III as the Redskins’ starting quarterback, Jessica McCloughan reportedly wrote on Twitter, “I’m pretty sure this info is coming from my husband to his new side chick, Dianna.”
Jessica deleted the tweet and her account and apologized to Russini.
“I deeply apologize for the disparaging remarks about an ESPN reporter on my personal Twitter account. The comment was unfounded and inappropriate, and I have the utmost respect for both the reporter and ESPN,” she wrote at the time.
“I regret that my actions have brought undeserved negative attention to the Redskins organization and its leadership. My comments in no way reflect the opinions or attitudes of the organization and I regret that my behavior has in any way negatively impacted the team and its loyal fan base.”
ESPN also defended its reporter in a statement, saying, “Dianna is an excellent reporter who should never have to be subjected to such vulgar comments. We are obviously extremely disappointed by today’s developments.”
The expectations on Russini have been sky-high since she joined the Athletic.
“To think Dianna Russini will almost certainly make more money than Maggie Haberman or David Brooks— Times legends — and, crazily, might earn more than them combined, is a sign of the strange sports journalism times we live in,” NBC’s Peter King wrote of her signing. “Stars who cover the NFL make crazy salaries compared to the money people make covering news that truly matters.”
