Patriots Reporter Claims Ulterior Motive With The Dianna Russini Story

The New England media hasn't been too thrilled about how Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel has been portrayed amid the Dianna Russini scandal. One longtime Boston sportswriter believes that the entire thing is being intentionally overblown.

Appearing on Felger & Mazz, Greg Bedard of the Boston Sports Journal asserted that the Russini-Vrabel situation shouldn't be considered "big news" but is only getting that treatment because it's a slow news cycle before the NFL Draft. He declared that if people really spent time covering the extramarital affairs of NFL people, there'd be no time to actually watch or cover the games themselves.

"If it was my job to cover extramarital affairs about owners, executives, players, coaches, I'd never cover the games," Bedard said.

Bedard said that this NFL Draft cycle is so boring and devoid of "juice" that it's being made into something bigger than it should be.

"You're saying it's big news. No, it's big news because you need something to talk about. There's no juice in this draft. There's nothing going on in the NFL. Francisco Mendoza [Sic], nobody cares about him, he's boring, he's going to the Raiders, it's a terrible draft. This has been going on for weeks, where there's nothing in the NFL, so this has given people something to talk about. If this happened in the middle of the season, it would not be nearly as big a story as it is."

Truth to the claim?

There might be some truth to the notion that it FEELS like the story has received more attention than it would if it were smack in the middle of the NFL season. But the difference is that a lack of other things to divert attention simply makes it easier to ignore the story and let it fade into the background along with the myriad of other terrible things that happen in the world on an almost daily basis.

The story may not be "big news" in the context of an NFL team making a push for the Super Bowl, but that doesn't make it any less newsworthy. There's simply less things for people (and specifically, reporters) to be distracted by.

In the end, no matter how "big" the story was destined to be, it still raised a ton of useful questions about ethics in sports journalism, accountability (or lack thereof) and honesty. The main problem is there just isn't room for a nuanced conversation on any of those topics anymore.

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This story was originally published April 22, 2026 at 4:05 PM.