Exclusive photos obtained by Page Six appear to show New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel and the New York Times’ top NFL reporter holding hands and hugging at a luxury hotel.
Vrabel and Deanna Russini, a former anchor of ESPN’s flagship show SportsCenter who now holds the official title of “Senior NFL Insider” at the Gray Lady sports publication The Athletic, were spotted over the weekend at Ambiente in Sedona, Arizona, a boutique resort with the breathtaking Bullins Mesa Mountains in the background.
Page Six spies say the couple, who are both married to other people, had breakfast on the hotel restaurant patio around 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 28, then spent an hour relaxing together by the pool and relaxing side by side in the hot tub.
Our spies spotted Vrabel and Russini again that night on the private rooftop of one of the hotel’s bungalows, with walls of glass offering panoramic views of the state’s famous red rock formations.
Two-person bungalows with roof access cost up to $2,160 per night.
In the photo, the two can be seen hugging and facing each other with their fingers intertwined at sunset. Spies said the two were seen dancing together briefly.
Both Russini and Vrabel insist they were with friends and simply weren’t in the photo. A person close to Russini said he was staying at the hotel on a hiking trip with two female friends. One of Vrabel’s friends told Page Six that he and his coach and another friend drove to Sedona that day, hung out with Russini and others, and then all drove back to their hotel, about two hours away.
But three other witnesses said no one else was with Vrabel, 50, and Russini, 43. When Pat’s coach asked if he had visited the hotel with friends, one witness said, “No, he was with a girl.” And a series of photos taken at various points that day show only Vrabel and Russini.
Vrabel attended a scouting event at Arizona State University in Tempe on Friday, March 27, before traveling 125 miles to Ambiente.
The adults-only Ambiente prides itself on providing romantic getaways, and our website boasts of 158 marriage proposals and thousands of anniversaries and honeymoons celebrated at our hotel.
After meeting with Russini, Vrabel headed to Phoenix’s Biltmore Hotel for a meeting of the NFL Competition Committee, the group of owners and coaches that oversees the NFL’s rulebook.
Russini was one of many NFL reporters who gathered at the Biltmore last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, giving media access to owners, executives and coaches.
On Thursday, The Athletic published a breaking report on the Biltmore meeting written by Russini and Jacob Robinson.
Russini has been one of the most prominent football writers in the country for more than a decade, and regularly covers the Patriots as part of his job.
She joined “SportsCenter” in 2015 and has appeared on ESPN’s popular shows “NFL Countdown” and “NFL Live.”
In 2023, she joined The Athletic, a previously independent site. The site was acquired by The Times and now provides the newspaper’s sports coverage. Russini hosts the “Scoop City: Inside the NFL” podcast.
Vrabel, who played eight seasons as a linebacker for the Patriots, became the team’s top coach in January 2025 and surprised the league this year by leading the team to the Super Bowl.
The Patriots, six-time Super Bowl champions, are ranked by Forbes magazine as the fourth most valuable team in the NFL, with a value of approximately $9 billion and annual revenue of $762 million. Mr. Vrabel’s annual salary is believed to be about $15 million.
He and Russini go way back.
Covering the Tennessee Titans was Russini’s first NFL win on ESPN. By the time Vrabel took over as head coach in 2018, she was part of the network at the Nashville field.
“They went from being a team that no one thought about to playing really well because of Mike,” she said of the 2018 Titans on her podcast “Patriots Unfiltered” in February. “And of course they went to the AFC Championship Game in 2020.”
In 2015, Russini weathered controversy when Washington Commanders GM Scott McLuhan’s wife publicly accused him of infidelity.
After reporters broke the story about Kirk Cousins replacing Robert Griffin III as the Redskins’ starting quarterback, Jessica McLuhan reportedly wrote on Twitter, “I’m pretty sure this info is getting from my husband to his new side chick Deanna.”
Jessica deleted her tweet and account and apologized to Russini.
“I deeply apologize for the derogatory remarks I made about an ESPN reporter on my personal Twitter account. The comments were unfounded and inappropriate, and I have the utmost respect for both the reporter and ESPN,” she wrote at the time.
“I regret that my actions brought unwarranted negative attention to the Redskins organization and its leadership. My comments in no way reflect the opinions or attitudes of the organization, and I regret that my actions negatively impacted the team and its loyal fan base in any way.”
ESPN also defended the reporter in a statement, saying: “Deanna is an excellent reporter who should never have been subjected to such vile comments. We are clearly extremely disappointed in today’s developments.”
Expectations for Russini have been extremely high since she joined Athletic.
“To think that Deanna Russini will certainly make more money than Times legends Maggie Haberman and David Brooks, and, funnily enough, may make more money than either of them combined, is indicative of the strange times in sports journalism we live in,” NBC’s Peter King wrote about her contract. “The stars who cover the NFL are paid exorbitant salaries compared to what the people who cover the stories that really matter make.”
Russini spoke about the pressures of leading the highly respected media’s soccer coverage, particularly the need to be close to some of the top figures in the world of soccer.
Just before this year’s Super Bowl, she said, “A lot of people in the football world reached out to me and said, ‘If you don’t do this, this, this, you’re going to drown.'” “In fact, the head coach contacted me in the first three months and said, ‘Why aren’t you calling me?’ … What he meant was, ‘My competitors are calling me, so if I want to stay in this situation and do it at a high level, I’m going to have to be more aggressive.’ I think I’ve become a little more aggressive since then. ”
Russini married Shake Shack executive Kevin Goldschmidt in 2020 and they have two children.
She celebrated their 2022 wedding anniversary on Instagram, writing, “Today, two years later, was the best day of my life. When I married Kev in front of my family and dozens of friends over Zoom! For me, it’s you and only you, forever.”
Vrabel and his wife, Jen, met as student athletes at Ohio State University and reportedly celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in 2024. They have two sons, one of whom, Tyler, briefly played for the Atlanta Falcons.
The coach told Page Six on Tuesday: “These photos show a completely innocent interaction and any suggestion otherwise is laughable and deserves no further response.”
And Russini said, “The photo does not represent a group of six people hanging out during the day. Like most NFL journalists, the reporter is interacting with sources away from the stadium and other venues.”
“These photos are misleading and lack important context. These were public interactions in front of many people. Deanna is a premier journalist covering the NFL, and we are proud to welcome her to The Athletic,” said Stephen Ginsburg, executive editor of The Athletic.
Additional reporting by Kevin Sheehan and Ben Brown
