If the reporters assigned to cover the New England Patriots are actually being paid to do so, they should be furloughed, judging from Tuesday’s media circus.
During a so-called news conference, the beat writers let Mike Vrabel play them for absolute fools.
A reporter asked Vrabel what he learned from his recent “counseling” sessions.
Specifically the question went as follows:
“You said this offseason that you were seeking counseling. I wanted to follow up on that and see what you learned from that counseling, and how did you balance that personal commitment with getting ready for this season?”
Seriously, that was the question.
Not “what kind of a coaching role model is a married man having an affair with a married woman?”
Not “when are you going to come clean on your affair with Dianna Russini?”
So here was Vrabel’s response to the ridiculous softball question about what he “learned from counseling:”
“I think we always look at improvement. As we talk about getting ready for the next season, we always look at improvement and ways that we can improve individually and how we can improve as a team.
“It’s really critical that we continue to do that on and off the field. I believe in that. I believe in everything that we can do to help this football team, to help our coaches, to help myself and everybody else included.
“This journey that we are going to go on is going to be completely different than the one we went on last year. That’s all of our jobs, is to prepare for it now. So, really focused on our improvement individually and as a team, and that’s something that we can do today.
“You look at the O-line, and we talk about them and their ability to play together as a unit. There are so many combination blocks that they are involved in, and we have to be better.
“Again, five O-linemen have to be able to sustain a line of scrimmage, and I just walked into that meeting room and said, ‘How do we improve? How do we improve our combination blocks?’ We are not asking you to block everybody 1-on-1. So, I think we all have areas that we can improve on, and that includes the coaches.”
Honest, that is what the married-with-children coach of the New England Patriots said about getting caught on camera more than once canoodling with a married-with-children reporter.
No one in the room said a word after that.
No follow-up questions.
No “are you serious?”
A great question would have been “are you still sleeping on the couch?”
Or “did you impregnate Dianna Russini like rumors have suggested?”
Or “is it true Dianna Russini’s son Michael is named after you?”
Or “how many times did you and Dianna get sacked?”
Editor’s note: Please feel free to submit your own follow-up questions for Vrabel in the comments section.
The Maine Wire will submit your inquiries to the New England Patriots for a response.
No one cares
Might have chosen different wording in the lede line.
Very public affairs like this are so common in college and among us college coaches that I doubt anyone on the team says very much about it. And reporters sleeping with sources is so common in DC that it’s becoming a real problem in terms of bias.
Yes, she looks like a predator in that photo, but I to wonder about the context in which it was taken. And the people I feel sorry for are the spouses.
Ummm, THE college coaches, not “us.”
When are the Pats going to let him go and hire a new head coach? Not anytime soon.