Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
It's the Boomer and Geo podcast from WFAN. All right, Boomer and Geo on the fan and CBS Sports Network coming to you live from the Built Ford Tough studio. Want to join the show? 888-808-1019. It's a Red Pocket Mobile fan line brought to you by your new ultimate cell carrier, Red Pocket Mobile. And this NFL smut story ends up hitting page six yesterday. It's just a, it's a tough thing.
And there's no real confirmation of things going on, but the players involved, NFL reporter who has been in here in studio, Diana Rossini, now with the Athletic and Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel, and there's pictures of the two of them sitting next to each other in a pool, and then there is... Canoodling! Canoodling! And then they are holding hands in an odd way.
And then there's another picture of them embracing, looking at the mountains at this hotel. And it doesn't look great. But it's not like you have a full-blown sex tape of these two that are going on. So there's plausible deniability going on with the two of them. And both of them felt the need to release statements yesterday. And...
The Vrabel statement was, these photos show a completely innocent interaction and any suggestion otherwise is laughable. This doesn't deserve any further response. And then Rossini responded saying, 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 the stadiums and other venues.
Chapter 2: What sparked the Vrabel and Russini controversy?
So... Whether or not this is a relationship and they went to this place by themselves, because there were other witnesses, I guess, that were saying that, yeah, both of them are claiming that they went there with other people and friends, but they were just seen together the whole time, the two of them. Whether any of that is true or not, the problem is that...
Now, Diana Rossini is going to have this hanging over her head more so than Vrabel, I think, because of the reporter thing, the female reporter thing. There's so many great women reporters out there that...
You'll see them get very, very upset when stuff like this happens because then people cast this whole assumption about these relationships between female reporters and the athletes and the coaches that they cover, and it's just not fair. It's just not right.
Well, I mean, so this is not... The salacious part of the story is not what's really going to be putting her in a difficult position. It's going to be the journalism part of the story. And The Athletic came out and basically said they backed Diana, and good for them.
Chapter 3: What do the photos of Vrabel and Russini reveal?
They called the photos misleading and lack of central context. And I think she was trying to say that there were four of the people there with them. And the photos don't look great, of course, but... You know, she's claiming that it's not what everybody seems to think that it is. But still, the biggest problem is, can you imagine, let's say there was a female wide receiver coach.
Now we have female coaches in the league. Sure, yeah, yeah. And let's say you saw Rich Cimini hugging her. Why Rich, man? Why is he catching strays of this whole thing? Poor Rich. No, but what I'm saying is if we ever caught Rich hugging one of those wide receiver coaches, it's like a woman. We'd all be saying, oh, there goes his journalistic integrity out the window.
You know what I mean?
And that's really what this is all about, whether or not she can recover from that kind of feeling within the business. That's the issue. I'm not worried about the salacious part of it. I actually do believe both of them, but I don't. What I worry about for her is just that the general look of somebody who covers the league Holding hands and, you know, hugging or whatever.
I mean, like, people do hug hello all the time. Especially somebody like Diana who knows everybody in the league. I'm sure he's not the first person she's hugged to say hello to.
Yeah, but this wasn't a hug to say hello. That's not what that was. No, I know, but what I'm saying... I mean, here's what... The way I'll put it is that if my significant other was in those pictures, I would be like, something's going on. That's just what I saw.
Okay, I see more of the salacious part.
I just think, I mean, but what I don't know for a fact, I'm just saying if that were me and I saw that, I'd be like, that feels... It doesn't feel right.
It doesn't look right. All right, but for her professionally, it's the conflict of interest part of it.
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Chapter 4: How did Vrabel and Russini respond to the controversy?
And it's just... It's a really, really tough thing. And, you know, you think about the people that are involved that had, like, nothing to do with any of this who now have to deal with it. I mean, that's really the stuff. Like, you know, the... the wives and the husbands and the kids and that stuff.
So, I mean, it could very well be the face value that they're talking about or it could be something else. But one thing's for sure, that Diana Rossini is going to have this and Mike Vrabel are going to have this. You know, this is going to be a thing that people are going to be thinking about. I mean, more so with Rossini because of the covering of the league and also, like, Jet fans...
grew to really dislike her with the reporting that was going on during the Aaron Rodgers, Rob Sala years.
Oh, she was getting unbelievable information.
Right. So, you know, those Jet fans now are going to go and get their pound of flesh with this whole thing, which is just the way that the world works, unfortunately. So it's just stuff like that where it's like now ā If she puts out something, it's just... You're going to see all the bad people who want to tear her down say the same thing over and over again to her.
But it's... Yeah, it's tough. But here's the other thing. How... How did any, like, Diana Rossini and Mike Vrabel in some place, what was this, Arizona? Yeah, I guess it was after the owners' meetings. I can't imagine. Who tips off somebody and takes these pictures and then sells them to Page Six?
I just think that, you know... They're on vacation with people. They're up there with other people. I don't know who the other people were.
Allegedly, they're up there with other people. Page Six talked to a bunch of people that were around. They were like, no, we never saw them hanging out with anybody but each other. That's what they're saying, that they were there with other people. I just find it strange that they were... I understand paparazzi will hang outside of a... a restaurant or a part of town in L.A.
or a hotel where someone's staying and they get tipped off. How did this become a tip? Very strange. At this hotel... That no one, it wasn't the owner's meeting hotel, it was a completely different hotel. It was up in Sedona. So I thought that originally it was the owner's meeting hotel, and I found out it was a completely different place.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications for Diana Russini as a journalist?
Yeah, and I do think you're right, though, for her and for her... legitimacy doing what she does, it's just going to be... It's tough. It's not going to be easy for her. It's going to be really, really tough on social media. You know that.
Yeah, and she's going to have to go away from it or totally ignore the responses. I know she's got a lot of legitimate friends in the business and people who really like her and she's going to have to lean on that support system during this. But yeah, she's going to get it worse than Vrabel's going to get it just because of the circumstances.
And it's nice to see the athletic have her back in this thing. But many people are now going to question her reporting based on these pictures, fair or not. Right.
And probably people are looking back on her reporting to determine whether or not they were, you know, where she got some of the information from.