One of the basic questions regarding the aftermath of the publication of photos of Patriots coach Mike Vrabel and former Athletic reporter Dianna Russini at an adults-only resort in Sedona, Arizona was whether a double standard applies to Vrabel and Russini. Her resignation pending an internal investigation highlights the fact that the consequences have been very different for the two people involved.
And, yes, the application of two standards arises from the reality that the two jobs are very different. Still, there are potential policies that could justify scrutiny by the team or the league of Vrabel.
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In the recent article from Ben Strauss of ESPN regarding the reaction to the emergence of the photos, Strauss points out that the NFL says it’s “not reviewing Vrabel’s behavior” under the Personal Conduct Policy.
As explained last Saturday, the policy’s list of prohibited conduct ends with a catch-all provision applicable to “[c]onduct that undermines or puts at risk the integrity of the NFL, NFL clubs, or NFL personnel.”
Rules that can be applied so broadly give employers the ultimate discretion to make case-by-case decisions as to what does and doesn’t run afoul of the relevant standard. All too often, those rules can be invoked against employees the employer doesn’t “like,” with the employer not using them as to employees with whom the employer has no pre-existing beef.
Case in point: Raiders coach Jon Gruden was pushed out swiftly after emails from a decade earlier (sent while he was employed not by an NFL team but by ESPN) emerged in October 2021. Nine years earlier, Saints coach Sean Payton was suspended for a full year based on defensive coordinator Gregg Williams’s utilization of a locker-room bounty habit that was later deemed by former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue to have been a cultural issue throughout the league. (Indeed, the NFL ignored once the Saints bounty scandal emerged evidence that Williams had done the same thing at multiple prior stops in his career.)
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The point isn’t to relitigate those two cases (litigation remains pending as to Gruden’s claim that supposedly confidential emails from an investigation regarding the Washington franchise were deliberately leaked to force him out). The outcomes as to Gruden and Payton are relevant to the reality that the NFL picks and chooses who will and won’t be investigated aggressively.
And so, at a time when The Athletic is reviewing Russini’s reporting (ESPN arguably should be doing so as well), the NFL isn’t considering whether any issues may have arisen from the possibility that Vrabel was leveraging the relationship (whatever it may have been) to advance strategic interests (plenty of Eagles fans remain curious about the possibility of tampering as to A.J. Brown) and/or to leak non-public information. There’s also the hypothetical possibility of a potential violation of the league’s and/or the team’s sexual harassment policies. (The photos are not proof of that, but they could easily be the starting point for taking a closer look at the situation.)
Again, the editorial standards at The Athletic and its parent company, The New York Times, provide a much more clear and obvious vehicle for scrutinizing the reporter. That doesn’t mean there’s no rule or regulation that the coach may have violated.
The Strauss article includes new reporting that Russini immediately consulted with a “crisis communications expert” and coordinated with Vrabel as to their response to the story. For some employers, that would be enough to trigger the basic question of whether it makes sense to learn more about what exactly was going on.
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The league nevertheless doesn’t seem to be inclined to ask any questions about whatever it was that was going on, beyond the photos and facts reported by the New York Post. And the Patriots, who believe they’ve found the post-Belichick coach who can lead the franchise back to consistent contention for championships, have no reason to do anything other than circle the wagons and hunker down — as evidenced by the fact that Patriots radio analyst Scott Zolak won’t even touch the story on his weekday radio show.
Our guess is that the league and the Patriots will continue to do nothing unless and until something emerges that makes them believe they must. Whether that comes from new reporting, from the outcome of the ongoing internal investigation of Russini, or some other source remains to be seen.
Read the full article here
