The hosts of ESPN’s Inside the NBA had some fun at the expense of the controversy-mired New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel and former Athletic NFL reporter Dianna Russini.
During a Sunday night discussion about the Boston Celtics‘ exit from the NBA playoffs, the hosts showed a photoshopped image depicting a Boston fishing boat carrying a handful of Boston-area celebrities — John Krasinski, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, sportscaster Bill Simmons, and Celtics stars Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum were all present — as well as two other figures recreating the iconic “I’m flying” scene from Titanic at the ship’s bow.
Those two figures were representations of Vrabel and Russini. Page Six shared images of the two at an adults-only resort in Sedona, Arizona, last month allegedly holding hands and sitting by the hotel’s pool together. Both have denied allegations of wrongdoing. Vrabel and Russini are both married to other spouses, and it is considered a serious breach of ethics for a journalist to engage in a romantic relationship with a source.
Host Kenny Smith, playing dumb, tried to bait co-host Charles Barkley into commenting on the alleged couple’s inclusion on the graphic.
“Who are those two people at the front?” Smith asked, laying the trap for Barkley. “I don’t know them.”
Barkley didn’t want to touch the issue.
“Stop it, stop it,” he said.
Ernie Johnson, another host, pretended as though the embattled couple weren’t even in the picture.
“Ben Affleck and Matt Damon on there, Tatum and Brown,” Johnson said. “That’s all I see on that boat. I don’t see anything else.”
The hosts quickly dipped out of the segment and never directly referenced the inclusion of Vrabel and Russini in the graphic.
The photos published in Page Six showed Vrabel and Russini spending time together during the NFL’s annual meeting in Arizona. Page Six also published photos from 2020 that appeared to show Vrabel and Russini kissing.
Russini resigned from The Athletic last month. In her resignation letter, she defended her work covering the NFL and described the allegations about her involvement with Vrabel as “speculation” that is “simply unmoored from the facts.”
She wrote that she resigned “not because I accept the narrative that has been constructed around this episode, but because I refuse to lend it further oxygen or to let it define me or my career.”
Vrabel initially shrugged off the accusations, calling them “laughable,” but as more photos surfaced, he took a short leave from the Patriots in order to attend counseling.
“As I said the other day, I promised my family, this organization and this team that I was going to give them the best version of me that I can possibly give them. In order to do so, I have committed to seeking counseling, starting this weekend,” Vrabel said on April 22, according to ESPN. “This is something that I have given a lot of thought to and is something I would advise a player to do if I was counseling them.”
Ahead of this year’s NFL Draft in Pittsburgh, Vrabel said that his “previous actions don’t meet the standard that I hold myself to,” though he did not specify the previous actions he was referencing.
“My priorities are my family and this football team, in that order. And there is a balance there that I am going to create,” he said.
The Independent has requested comment from ESPN.
