Dianna Russini was pulling down close to $800,000 a year as a senior NFL insider at The Athletic, a salary that made her one of the highest-paid journalists in the entire New York Times Company, before a cascade of compromising photographs with New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel cost her the job, Page Six reported.
The figure, disclosed by a former manager with knowledge of Russini's salary negotiations, surfaced in a sweeping New York Times investigation published June 24. That 5,000-word report laid bare the full arc of a scandal that has embarrassed the Times Company, sidelined one of sports media's most prominent reporters, and forced an NFL head coach to skip part of the draft and seek counseling.
The salary number matters because it frames the institutional stakes. The New York Times bought The Athletic in 2022 for $550 million. Russini, 43, was a marquee hire, a face of the platform's NFL coverage. Her contract was set to expire at the end of June 2026, and The Athletic was actively negotiating a renewal when the first photographs broke in April.
Page Six released exclusive photos on April 7 showing Vrabel, 50, and Russini holding hands and embracing at a luxury resort in Sedona, Arizona. Both are married, Vrabel to Jen Vrabel, Russini to Shake Shack executive Kevin Goldschmidt. Both denied anything romantic was happening, insisting they were joined by other friends at the resort.
Three days later, the Times sidelined Russini amid an internal investigation into her conduct. By April 14, she had resigned.
In a resignation letter reported by the AP, Russini framed her departure as a refusal to submit to a process she said had already done more damage than she was willing to accept. Athletic Executive Editor Steven Ginsberg confirmed the investigation was still underway when she walked out the door.
"I have no interest in submitting to a public inquiry that has already caused far more damage than I am willing to accept. Rather than allowing this to continue, I have decided to step aside now."
That was Russini's public statement. Her private comments, the ones she didn't want anyone to see, told a different story.
When a Times reporter contacted Russini in early May seeking comment, she responded via text message. She described the "intense scrutiny and personal attacks" she had faced and acknowledged the toll.
"This has had a significant impact on my life, both professionally and personally."
Then she tried to pull the quotes back. Russini asked the reporter not to use her text messages and escalated the request up the chain, reaching out to The Athletic's publisher and two senior Times editors in an attempt to block publication. The reporter told Russini her comments would be included because she had not asked for them to be off the record at the time she sent them.
As we previously reported, Russini referred to herself as an "ex-journalist" in those texts, a telling self-description from someone who had spent years building credibility as a top-tier NFL reporter.
The Sedona pictures were damaging enough. But on April 23, Page Six published a second set of exclusive photographs, these taken in 2020, showing Vrabel and Russini kissing at a dimly lit New York City bar. That outing occurred roughly six months before Russini married Goldschmidt, and while Vrabel was already married to Jen.
The Breitbart report on Vrabel's response noted that additional photos emerged showing the two being affectionate at Tribeca Tavern in New York City in 2020, and that a 2021 boating trip photo also surfaced, taken while Russini was pregnant.
The day the bar photos went public, Russini deleted her social media accounts.
Vrabel, for his part, attempted to manage the fallout in stages. On April 23, he announced he would skip Day 3 of the 2026 NFL Draft to seek counseling and focus on family and personal matters. The Patriots publicly supported the decision.
Ahead of the draft, Vrabel offered a partial admission, as the New York Post reported.
"My previous actions don't meet the standard that I hold myself to. They don't."
By April 29, Mike and Jen Vrabel were in Park City, Utah, for what was described as an emergency 24-hour marriage summit. Vrabel had been spotted buying a gift, reportedly for his wife, while still wearing his wedding ring.
The contrast between the two principals is worth noting. Vrabel stayed in his job. He made public statements, sought counseling, and kept coaching. Russini lost her $800,000 position, scrubbed her online presence, and went silent.
The $800,000 figure places Russini near the top of the Times Company's pay scale for journalists, a remarkable number for a sports reporter at any outlet. But it still falls far short of the compensation commanded by her male counterparts in the industry. Adam Schefter once earned $9 million per year, and Adrian Wojnarowski pulled in $7 million, figures previously reported by the New York Post.
Whether those comparisons are apples-to-apples is debatable. Schefter and Wojnarowski occupied singular positions in their respective sports. But the gap is wide enough to raise questions about how The Athletic valued its top NFL talent, and what the Times Company expected in return for that investment.
The Times' own investigation, described as still ongoing, has reportedly caused staff unrest within the organization. The Fox News report on the fallout noted that the 5,000-word Times piece characterized Russini as not "just any reporter", her salary made her one of the most expensive journalists the company employed.
Several questions hang over the story. The Times' internal investigation reportedly raised "additional concerns" beyond the photographs, but the nature of those concerns has not been made public. The identity of the former manager who disclosed Russini's salary remains unknown. And whether Russini's attempt to block her quotes through senior editors succeeded or failed, beyond the fact that the quotes ultimately ran, has not been fully explained.
Russini's current employment status is also unclear. She resigned from The Athletic on April 14. Her contract was set to expire at the end of June. No new role has been announced.
The Times Company, meanwhile, is left holding a $550 million acquisition whose most prominent NFL reporter walked out the door under a cloud, while the investigation into her conduct continues without a public resolution.
The Russini-Vrabel saga is, at bottom, a story about accountability, and who faces it. An NFL head coach kept his job, made a public statement about counseling, and moved on to the next season. A journalist earning close to $800,000 a year lost her position, deleted her public identity, and tried to retroactively seal her own words.
The Times Company spent half a billion dollars to buy The Athletic and build it into a credible sports journalism platform. One of its highest-paid reporters became the story instead of covering it. The internal investigation drags on. Staff morale reportedly suffers.
None of this happened because of bad luck. It happened because the people involved made choices, and the institution that employed one of them is still trying to figure out how much those choices cost.
When the newsroom becomes the scandal, the readers paying for subscriptions deserve to know who's minding the store.
