| RETURN OF RUSSINIMike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com notes that we have not heard the last of Dianna Russini: Last week, I said there were two developments that could bring the Mike Vrabel-Dianna Russini story back to the front burner. As it turns out, there was another way it could have been dusted off. Beyond The Athletic announcing the outcome of its internal investigation of Russini (number one) and Russini going public with her side of the story (number two), a third path for resurrecting the issue was looming — a lengthy New York Times article regarding the ordeal. It’s a significant article, for several reasons. First, it contains several new revelations. (More on those in a later post.) Second, the Times owns and operates The Athletic. It’s impossible not to regard the new article as the precursor to the announcement of the results of the review that The Athletic has been conducting since early April. As of last week, the probe was “still ongoing.” As of June 10, the investigation was still “a few weeks away” from its conclusion. Two weeks since the final answer was “a few weeks away,” it’s possible (if not probable) that the Times decided to get ahead of the looming announcement by The Athletic regarding the investigation by doing something that neither the Times nor The Athletic had done regarding the biggest NFL story of the offseason: engage in journalism about it. While there are several specific takeaways from the new article published by the Times, the big-picture assessment is that The Athletic is getting very close to issuing the results of its investigation. And the article in the Times is essentially the appetizer. Here it is, somewhat edited, your appetizer from Ken Belson and Katherine Rosman: Dianna Russini had been busted. It was January, and Ms. Russini — then the star N.F.L. reporter for The Athletic, a sports publication owned by The New York Times Company — had been pulled over by a police officer while texting and driving with her two young sons. It was the second time in a month, she would later recall, that the police had stopped her. On this occasion, Ms. Russini tried to fend off a ticket by telling the officer that the coach of the Buffalo Bills had been fired, and she was trying to break news. The officer was unmoved, telling her he was a fan of a different team. That’s when she made him an offer. Maybe she could connect him, right then and there, to his favorite team’s coach. “Do you want to talk to the coach? You should talk to the coach,” Ms. Russini said she told the officer as she recounted the incident a couple of weeks later on “Stugotz and Company,” a radio show and podcast. “I FaceTime the head coach,” she said, without naming him. “Head coach is in his office. He said, ‘What’s up?’ I go, ‘I just got pulled over and I just wanted you to meet my friend, Officer Joe.’” The coach helped her get out of the ticket by telling the officer, “You should let her go, she’s a good citizen,” Ms. Russini said. The podcast host howled with laughter. “I wish I had that kind of access,” he said. About two months later, The New York Post published photos of Ms. Russini and the New England Patriots head coach, Mike Vrabel, relaxing in a hot tub at an exclusive Arizona resort and hugging and interlacing their fingers on a rooftop that could be reached only through one of the hotel’s private suites. They both were married to other people. The pictures created a frenzy of gossip — as well as examinations of Ms. Russini’s interactions with Mr. Vrabel, a major N.F.L. figure whom she had covered extensively. The Post and TMZ published additional images that seemed to suggest that the reporter and the coach had a close personal relationship spanning years. Suddenly Ms. Russini’s access was the story. The tabloid drama stunned the Times Company. Ms. Russini was not just any reporter. The Athletic paid her an annual salary of close to $800,000, according to a former manager who had knowledge of her salary negotiation. This would have made her one of the highest-paid journalists at the Times Company. She had been promoted as a face of the sports publication, which the company bought in 2022 for $550 million as part of an effort to expand the Times’s reach to sports fans around the world. At the time the story broke, The Athletic was in discussions with Ms. Russini about renewing her contract, which was set to expire at the end of June. Ms. Russini’s bosses initially backed her, saying the photos lacked “essential context.” But The Athletic began an investigation into her reporting. Rather than wait for the results of her employer’s review, Ms. Russini resigned. In a statement, she said she stood by her journalism but had “no interest in submitting to a public inquiry that has already caused far more damage than I am willing to accept.” A rare woman in the hypermasculine world of N.F.L. sources and scoop artists, Ms. Russini had worked her way into a fraternity of “insiders,” brand-name media figures known for their exceptional access. As a dogged reporter with an entertainer’s verve, she built her own brand and merged it with one of the most famous institutions in journalism, The New York Times Company. It seemed to be a mutually beneficial arrangement. Until it wasn’t. Ms. Russini operated in a sports-media landscape where traditional journalistic lines could be blurry. She might have considered calling a coach to get out of a ticket not only appropriate, but a funny story to tell on a podcast. For The Athletic, under the ownership of The Times, it was out of bounds. Danielle Rhoades Ha, a Times Company spokeswoman, described it as “unacceptable conduct,” adding that Athletic editors had been unaware of it because Ms. Russini neither sought nor received permission to appear on the podcast, as required by company guidelines. Mr. Vrabel was not the coach whom Ms. Russini called for help getting out of the ticket,according to someone with whom she shared the details of the story. But regardless of who the coach was, the episode hints at a deeper tension over how a sports journalist like Ms. Russini works. Her approach to reporting raised specific questions, including whether her closeness to a source like Mr. Vrabel compromised her role at The Athletic. Whatever the nature of Ms. Russini’s relationship with Mr. Vrabel, hanging out with him poolside at a tucked-away hotel was problematic, according to journalists and media experts. “Even someone working in local news knows, if you were seen in a hot tub with a local coach, that wouldn’t be OK,” said Kelly McBride, the chair of the Newmark Center for Ethics at the Poynter Institute and a former ombudswoman at ESPN. “Stuff like that gets around fast.” As for the story about the traffic stop, Ms. McBride said asking a coach for help to avoid a ticket would have been an abuse of professional access for personal gain. As part of its review, The Athletic is looking into “Dianna’s involvement” in a January 2025 article, “Inside Mike Vrabel’s Year Off,” Ms. Ha said. The roughly 4,400-word article was written by another reporter, Zack Rosenblatt, after Ms. Russini helped broker the coach’s cooperation, arranging breakfast for the three of them so Mr. Rosenblatt could make his pitch. (Mr. Rosenblatt did not respond to a message seeking comment. Ms. Ha said The Athletic’s review of that article does not go beyond Ms. Russini’s role.) To report this article, Times journalists interviewed more than three dozen people in and around the industry — many of whom had worked with Ms. Russini during her two-decade career. Many spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to risk their own livelihoods, or because they did not want their names connected to a story that has generated such social media intrigue, private pain and professional angst. Ms. Russini was sent a detailed memo laying out the Times’s reporting. She declined several requests for an interview. Neither she nor Mr. Vrabel commented for this article on whether their relationship had ever been romantic. The Patriots did not make Mr. Vrabel, 50, available for an interview and did not respond to specific questions. The Athletic and the Times Company did not make their executives available, either. ‘How Can I Beat Everybody?’Ms. Russini, 43, was not merely a reporter. She was a personality, bursting with main-character energy. On television and on podcasts, she talked not just about football but about herself. She played up her New Jersey roots, her scrappy ambition and her experiences as a stretched-to-her-limit mother with a demanding job. It worked for her. “I’ve actually kind of leaned into being a person when I deal with players and coaches and G.M.s and whomever I talk to in football as a way to connect,” she said on the Stugotz podcast, contrasting her approach with “people who can be a little tight about it.” She portrayed herself as the opposite. In August, she went on a Washington, D.C., sports radio talk show and asked to be introduced not as an insider but as a “straight-up MILF.” Other times she shared anecdotes that drew her as a busy working mom. She told Dan Patrick, the popular sports talk host, that she had FaceTimed N.F.L. players to try to impress her sons. She trumpeted her skills as a reporter. On one occasion, she suggested that she had a sixth sense for news. In June 2021, after breaking the story that the Atlanta Falcons had traded the wide receiver Julio Jones to the Tennessee Titans, she went on television and told a story about receiving a sign while gambling at a bachelorette party in Atlantic City. “I’m at the roulette table on Saturday night around 11 p.m.,” she said on “Get Up,” ESPN’s weekday morning show “and I hit on black 11.” Aware that Mr. Jones wore No. 11 for Atlanta, Ms. Russini recalled telling someone else in their party: “That’s Julio. Something’s up.” She called her sources and confirmed her hunch. “I’m a witch,” Ms. Russini said. And she thrived on the competition, describing reporting almost like a sport in itself. “You have to be absolutely ruthless,” she told an interviewer at a media conference last summer, “constantly thinking, ‘How can I beat everybody?’” Being a woman in the business could give her an edge over her male counterparts, she told the podcaster Katie Nolan in February, because players might be more willing to open up to her than to a man. But it came with challenges too, like having her intentions misunderstood. “I try not to call anybody after 8 o’clock,” she told Ms. Nolan. “I don’t want their girlfriends or wives being, like, ‘Why is this woman calling?’” Ms. Russini’s journey to the highest echelons of media began in Norwood, N.J., about 20 miles outside New York City, where she grew up one of three children of a plumber and a nurse. A distinguished student-athlete, Ms. Russini ended up in Virginia, playing striker for the Division I women’s soccer team at George Mason University. “Dianna was athletic, she was willful, she was determined,” said Diane Drake, the team’s coach during Ms. Russini’s senior year — and she “never gave up.” She started her media career in local television news, reporting on the Hudson Valley and Westchester County in New York, as well as New Jersey, Seattle and Connecticut. One of her breaks came about a year into a job covering sports at Washington’s NBC affiliate, when she scooped the national press about the Washington Commanders signing the former Philadelphia Eagles star DeSean Jackson as a free agent. ESPN hired her in 2015, and she became an anchor on SportsCenter, the network’s marquee highlights program. But Ms. Russini’s destiny lay elsewhere in the sports-industrial complex: She moved into covering N.F.L. teams directly and breaking news, sharpening her skills as an aspiring insider. In sports journalism, “insider” is a term for a class of reporters who scrounge for scoops big and small across the entirety of the leagues they cover. Typically both highly visible and well-paid, they rely heavily on access to agents, players, coaches and general managers. The gig can be similar to that of reporters on political or business beats, but “insider” has in the last decade become a branding label to mark chosen reporters at sports networks and publications. (Two of the best known insiders, past and present, are Adrian Wojnarowski and Adam Schefter.) Fans pore over their articles, podcast appearances and social media posts — which often include tidbits attributed to “league sources” or other unnamed tipsters — to learn about the granular dealings that shape teams and bracket the action on the field. Ms. Russini had good days — she helped break news in 2019 of the wide receiver Antonio Brown’s messy departure from the Oakland Raiders, for instance — and bad ones. Later that year, she reported that the Jacksonville Jaguars were firing their head coach, Doug Marrone, but the team issued a statement calling her story “100 percent incorrect.” Mr. Marrone would remain Jacksonville’s coach for another year. That same season, she began to cover the Titans in earnest. Mr. Vrabel, a former linebacker, was in his second season as Tennessee’s head coach. In January 2020, Ms. Russini landed a sit-down interview with him. They seemed to have an easy rapport, with the coach mimicking himself running to check in on one of his players, and Ms. Russini laughing. “I don’t just want to be the coach who stands up there and says, ‘Don’t fumble,’” he told her. “I want to be the coach that helps them, and helps the team take care of the football or fix anything that needs to be fixed.” Less than two months later, on March 11, the coach and the journalist were meeting again, this time in a dark Manhattan bar. In photographs published recently by The New York Post, Ms. Russini and Mr. Vrabel are seen facing each other on bar stools — his hand is on her arm; her knees nestled between his. In one photo, he leans toward her and their faces appear to be almost touching. ‘Nashville, You Were My Second Home’Soon after that, the coronavirus sent much of the country into lockdown. Live sports went on pause. Fans and insiders alike logged on to their computers for entertainment and companionship. That April, Ms. Russini and Mr. Vrabel appeared with about a half-dozen others via Zoom, on a game show hosted by Barstool Sports. “Tell me something a man might do to get a woman in the mood,” the host asked. “Kiss her,” Ms. Russini replied. “I feel like this is good advice for you guys, too.” Mr. Vrabel looked up from his keyboard. “I’m paying very close attention,” he said. About three weeks later, Ms. Russini posted photographs on Instagram showing her boyfriend, Kevin Goldschmidt, proposing on bended knee. They married that September. And then it was football season, and Ms. Russini hit the road. The Titans were among the teams in her remit, and she covered six of their games in Nashville and a seventh in Indianapolis. In January 2021, she conducted her final on-camera interview with Mr. Vrabel of the season. She posted clips from the interview on Instagram. “Nashville,” she wrote in a caption on another post, “you were my second home this season.” She and Mr. Vrabel stayed in touch. One day, around the start of the next football season, Ms. Russini met ESPN friends for brunch in Hoboken, N.J. One of those friends, Ms. Nolan, later brought up the part of the hangout that she found the most memorable: when Ms. Russini took a FaceTime call from Mr. Vrabel in Ms. Nolan’s apartment lobby and turned the phone in her direction. “I was like: ‘Hi, Mike Vrabel! It’s very nice to meet you,’” Ms. Nolan recalled in February when Ms. Russini joined her as a podcast guest. Ms. Russini explained. “I remember we had to do, like, a pre-interview thing of, like, ‘Hey, here’s some topics we’re going to do,’” she said. The situation made an impression on her friend. “I remember you being like, ‘Oh, my God’,” she told Ms. Nolan. “You’re like, ‘What is your life?’” (Ms. Russini routinely FaceTimed with coaches and players as part of her job, according to a former colleague.) In September 2021, ESPN announced it had extended Ms. Russini’s contract. The network issued a news release touting her recent accomplishments, with a photo of Ms. Russini. In the photo, Ms. Russini is perched in the front row of the stadium seats near the end zone, microphone in hand, speaking toward a television camera at the left of the frame. Just behind her, Mr. Vrabel is standing on the field, staring toward the lens. ‘How That Would Look to the Public’In mid-2023, Ms. Russini’s contract with ESPN was set to expire. Though she was working in the style of insiders — always on her phone, fighting for scoops — she did not have “insider” in her formal job title and made significantly less than peers like Mr. Schefter, who was reported to be earning millions a year. With great trepidation about leaving what had been her dream job at ESPN, she accepted an offer from The Athletic. She would be known as “the senior N.F.L. insider.” That same summer the Times Company announced it was closing the sports desk of The Times, a move that the company said was made to offer expanded sports coverage to subscribers. Many of The Athletic’s stories appear on the homepage of the Times’s website and in its print pages. The Athletic’s Ms. Russini effectively became the company’s top N.F.L. reporter. “Transactions, injuries, trades and signings will be stories I chase, along with finding out the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ along the way,” she wrote in a piece introducing herself to Athletic readers. She was paired with the former N.F.L. quarterback Chase Daniel for a new podcast, which Amazon Music promoted with a Times Square billboard of Ms. Russini and Mr. Daniel. She also became the writer of a weekly column filled with her insider nuggets that was closely followed by fans and people in the industry. While Ms. Russini’s career was on the rise, Mr. Vrabel’s had a setback. The Titans fired him in early 2024 after his second straight losing season. The coach took a consultant job with the Cleveland Browns. One of Ms. Russini’s close friends told The Times that she never observed anything that would indicate that the relationship between Ms. Russini and Mr. Vrabel was different from the friendships some male insiders have with players, coaches, agents and team executives, and display on social media. Still, the friend said that Ms. Russini and Mr. Vrabel supported each other in their careers, and that after Mr. Vrabel was fired, Ms. Russini served as an unofficial adviser as he positioned himself for another top job. In 2025, he became head coach of the Patriots.– – –In another interview, with Mr. Patrick, the talk show host, in February, Ms. Russini portrayed herself as a tough and independent journalist. The sports talk host asked: “When is the last time you got yelled at by a coach or player?” “Mike Vrabel,” she answered quickly before describing a misunderstanding they had a few years ago when he thought she called him fat. She told Mr. Patrick that she was grateful for the chance to talk about getting yelled at by people she covered. Being an insider, Ms. Russini suggested, was not all about harmonious, mutually beneficial relationships. There could be tension. “I probably spend more time on the phone arguing with people in the league, because — I’m sure you guys are aware and you know this well — everyone is so paranoid about information and they want control over it,” she said. “And I like to dig, and sometimes I like to poke around in places where people don’t want to be poked.” She added: “But the truth is the truth.” That podcast went up during Super Bowl week, when Mr. Vrabel’s Patriots were squaring off against the Seattle Seahawks. At a party in San Francisco, where the sports world had descended for the big game, Ms. Russini posed for selfies with Meredith Kopit Levien, the Times Company’s chief executive, at an exclusive dinner for N.F.L. team owners. Ms. Russini captioned an Instagram photo of the two of them: “Best date. Best C.E.O.” The next month, Ms. Russini represented The Athletic at The State of the Times, an annual daylong presentation by the Times Company’s top executives and journalists about the company’s strategies and recent successes. Appearing with three colleagues to discuss the power of video, she again name-checked a certain coach. “I did an interview with the Patriots head coach, Mike Vrabel,” she began. The interview, she explained, was stilted and boring — so she asked him what she called a “throwaway” question, inviting Mr. Vrabel to share a pet peeve. The Patriots coach told her how much it angered him when he spotted able-bodied interlopers parked in designated handicap parking spots. “This person who was so robotic on every single thing we were talking about in regards to the N.F.L.,” Ms. Russini said. “But when it came to real-life things, he just opened up.” The video, she said, “went everywhere,” she said, because “everyone can relate to that.” She also noted the coach’s vigilance about his pet peeve. “It’s insane!” Ms. Russini told the audience, describing her thoughts during the interview. “I’m like: ‘What’s wrong with this person? What is wrong with the Kraft family for hiring this man?’” she said, referring to the owners of the Patriots. “But, obviously he’s pretty good, right? Went to the Super Bowl this year.” About two weeks later, she was in Arizona lounging with Mr. Vrabel in the hot tub in Sedona. The next day, Ms. Russini and Mr. Vrabel both attended the N.F.L.’s annual meeting in Phoenix. On the patio of the Arizona Biltmore, she ferried drinks between the bar and an informal klatch that included Mr. Vrabel and other head coaches. According to two people who were there, she periodically stopped to sit on the arm of the sofa next to where Mr. Vrabel sat. And then, a week later on Easter Sunday, she and her family were in the car, about to leave the house, when a reporter from The New York Post knocked on the window to ask about Sedona. ‘I Stand Behind Every Story’Ms. Russini once again found herself in a jam. This time, a well-placed phone call would not be enough to make the problem go away. She told The Post that she had been at the hotel in Sedona on a girls’ trip, but over the next two days did not provide any photos from the trip or receipts, according to someone with knowledge of the reporting process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it. Ms. Russini and Mr. Vrabel worked together to coordinate their responses to The Post, according to someone who had conversations with each of them. Ms. Russini eventually called her employer — but her first call was not to her bosses at The Athletic. Instead, she reached out directly to Ms. Levien, the chief executive of the Times Company. “You’ve got to call Steven and David,” Ms. Levien said, according to Ms. Ha, the Times Company spokeswoman, referring to Steven Ginsberg, The Athletic’s executive editor, and David Perpich, publisher of The Athletic and the vice chairman of the Times Company. The chief executive “had no other involvement after that,” said the spokeswoman, who declined to make Ms. Levien, Mr. Perpich or Mr. Ginsberg available for interviews. When The Athletic executives learned about The Post’s intention to publish the photos, the deadline for a response was just a few hours away. The executives were unaware that The Post had first contacted her two days earlier, according to Ms. Ha, the Times spokeswoman. The Athletic executives went into deadline mode, considering how to respond. Mr. Ginsberg was communicating with his colleagues while on vacation. A person involved said it felt difficult to imagine that there could be any truth to what the photographs seemed to be insinuating: that The Athletic’s star N.F.L. reporter was entangled in a personal relationship with one of the most prominent people on her beat. Mr. Ginsberg saw at least one of the photos that would soon be published. Still, it was the impulse of The Athletic executives to stand up for their employee. Mr. Ginsberg sent The Post a statement of support for Ms. Russini, which was approved by Mr. Perpich and David Rubin, the Times Company’s chief brand and communications officer. (Ms. Ha said Mr. Rubin was not available for an interview.) “These were public interactions in front of many people,” Mr. Ginsberg wrote in his statement to The Post. The photographs, he said, “lack essential context,” calling her “a premier journalist” whom The Athletic was proud to have on staff. The Post published the photographs, reporting that both Ms. Russini and Mr. Vrabel said “they were there with friends who they say simply weren’t visible in the pictures.” As commentators in the sports world questioned The Athletic’s judgment, the publication asked Mike Semel, its editorial director for standards and editorial quality, to review Ms. Russini’s work. As more information emerged, the company took note, a spokeswoman said. “More photos were included in the story than Steven was originally shown or was made aware of,” Ms. Ha said in an email. “The photos that ultimately ran raised new questions about Dianna’s conduct.” A week after the photos were published, Ms. Russini quit her job. “I have covered the N.F.L. with professionalism and dedication throughout my career, and I stand behind every story I have ever published,” she wrote in her resignation letter. In a note to the staff on the day of her resignation, Mr. Ginsberg explained the company’s initial defense of Ms. Russini. “There were clear concerns, but we received a detailed explanation and it was our instinct to support and defend a colleague while we continued to review the matter,” he wrote. “As additional information emerged, new questions were raised that became part of our investigation.” Ms. Russini’s friend said that she resigned because she saw an opportunity to reimagine her career and spend more time with her children. Mr. Vrabel kept his job. He initially called the speculation about his relationship with Ms. Russini “laughable.” But as the news outlets and commentators on social media continued to feast on the drama, Mr. Vrabel acknowledged having “difficult conversations” with his loved ones and then held a penitent — yet vague — news conference where he described his first response as “an attempt to protect your family.” “My previous actions don’t meet the standard that I hold myself to,” he said, without specifying what those actions were. He told reporters that he would skip the final day of the N.F.L. draft, which is one of the most important events of the year for a head coach, to seek counseling. After that news conference, The Post published more photos, reportedly taken six years ago in a Manhattan bar. Then other images dribbled out via TMZ, the online tabloid: a June 2021 TMZ video that showed a noticeably pregnant Ms. Russini with Mr. Vrabel on a dock at Center Hill Lake near Nashville, where they went on a boat trip; the two of them huddled at a 2022 party in Los Angeles; laughing together at a casino table in Mississippi in January 2024. (Ms. Russini’s friend said that members of Mr. Vrabel’s coaching staff were with them at the casino, but were not visible in the photo.) On April 29, three weeks after the scandal erupted, Mr. Vrabel received a standing ovation at an event for Patriots season ticket holders. In early May, after The Times began reporting this article, Ms. Russini responded to a reporter’s request for an interview via text message. She cited the “intense scrutiny and personal attacks” she had faced, saying, “This has had a significant impact on my life, both professionally and personally.” At the end of the message, referring to herself as a “former journalist,” Ms. Russini asked the reporter not to quote from the text. The interaction demonstrated a different approach to journalism from the way that it is conducted in traditional newsrooms. When the reporter told her that this article would include portions of her text message because no agreement had been made for them to engage in an off-the-record correspondence, Ms. Russini objected and then emailed Mr. Perpich, the publisher of The Athletic, as well as two senior editors at The Times to reiterate her wish that her comments not be included. Ms. Russini has not made any public comment since April, though photographs of her giving her husband a kiss outside their home on Mother’s Day were published by The Post. Her former employer appears to be moving on. This week, the Times Company is once again sending top journalists to the media conference in Cannes, this time without Ms. Russini. A reporter asked the Times Company spokeswoman if The Athletic was going to hire a new senior N.F.L. insider. She responded, “Not something I can confirm at that level of detail at this point.” |
| SORSBY AND THE NFLDan Wetzel of ESPN.com extols the NFL for turning a cold shoulder on QB BRANDON SORSBY’s gambit to enter a supplemental draft, even as his attorney, Jeffrey Kessler, fumes: The NFL announced it will not hold a supplemental draft this year, effectively denying Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby’s attempt to skirt NCAA punishment for gambling violations by jumping immediately to the pros. The move does what a Texas judge should have done last month: make it clear to Sorsby, and every college athlete tempted by the latest promo code, that there is no leniency when it comes to competitive integrity issues. College athletics is an opportunity — one that comes with not just fame, fanfare and scholarships but potentially millions in earnings. With that comes an obligation to uphold the basic tenets of the operation — in this case, not hitting some gambling app that makes the public question the validity of the action. And if you get caught, you can’t just slither off to the NFL. “As Commissioner [Roger] Goodell has emphasized, participation in the NFL is a privilege that carries with it significant responsibilities, including accountability,” reads a letter to Sorsby from Larry Ferazani, general counsel of the NFL Management Council, obtained by ESPN. It’s a fair tradeoff. A necessary tradeoff. And it’s a tradeoff the NFL is making Sorsby adhere to by telling him he can’t enter the league until the 2027 draft. That should serve as a powerful reminder to every NFL prospect (or those eyeing the NBA, NHL, MLB and so on) that sports wagering can bring significant repercussions. This spring, the NCAA permanently stripped Sorsby of his eligibility after the 22-year-old admitted to betting some 9,000 times over the past four years while a member of the Indiana, Cincinnati and, since January, Texas Tech programs. That included at least 40 bets on the Hoosiers while he was part of that team. All of this was a clear violation of the NCAA’s written statutes, precedents and repeated educational efforts. That seemed like the end until Judge Ken Curry, ruling out of Lubbock County, stunningly granted Sorsby a temporary injunction against the NCAA. Sorsby had argued a banishment would negatively impact his mental health and that he shouldn’t be punished for a medical condition (his gambling addiction). The ruling would have likely allowed him to play out the 2026 college season. As a by-product, the NCAA became the only sports governing organization on earth that was incapable of banning players for sports wagering. An intense backlash ensued, including sternly worded letters from dueling state attorneys general, the Big 12 Conference asking a federal court for a declaratory judgment to issue its own punishment and threats of a scheduling ban against all Red Raiders teams. Eventually, Tech backed down, and Sorsby, in an effort to get on the field this fall, asked the NFL to hold its first supplemental draft since 2023. Only the NFL wouldn’t play. “Under our Collective Bargaining Agreement, the League retains sole discretion to determine whether it is appropriate to conduct a Supplemental Draft in any given year,” the league wrote. “Your Petition — filed three business days before the deadline, without any supporting information or documentation … does not provide a basis for the League to alter those plans … “The sole reasons identified … are that you have been ‘declared ineligible’ by the NCAA, have ‘exhausted all of [your] avenues to continue in the NCAA,’ and ‘want to now play in the NFL,'” the letter continued. Sorsby’s attorney, Jeffrey Kessler, told ESPN that the decision to not hold the supplemental draft actually violates the NFL’s “CBA and the law.” “We will pursue this immediately with the NFLPA,” Kessler said. Of course. When it comes to this case, billable hours are as undefeated as the 1972 Miami Dolphins. Legality aside, in general terms, the NFL is correct here, even if its grandstanding on sports wagering is eyeroll-inducing. This is a league, after all, that partnered with sportsbooks until this year, allows owners to hold up to a 5% investment in sportsbooks and has a partnership to provide its game data to media companies and sports betting operators. As morality police go, the NFL is compromised, like all sports leagues and media partners that have their own similar business ties to sports betting. Still, even the league understands the danger in empowering players who get caught betting on their team’s own games by offering an easy off-ramp. If nothing else, the NFL had little interest in being handed this mess or pretending that a 35-day in-patient treatment session and a pinkie swear to never do it again meant everything was cool. “Your Petition does not … demonstrate accountability for your conduct or indicate whether, or how, you would adhere to the League’s rules and policies governing the integrity of competition,” the letter from the NFL reads. “Instead, even after receiving notice of the NCAA’s decision rescinding your college eligibility in May, you sought to avoid the consequences of that determination through litigation rather than accepting responsibility for your actions.” Here’s hoping instead that the NFL’s decision stands, if only for who else might hear it. If betting on your own team isn’t a third rail kind of issue, then everyone is in trouble. Kessler claims Sorsby would have given the NFL more if it had asked for anything beyond the bare bones application. Florio: “In late April, we inquired with the NFL about the process for gaining entry into the Supplemental Draft,” Kessler’s office said in a statement forwarded to PFT by Sorsby’s agent, Ron Slavin. “The response from the League was that all that was required was a short application, which needed to be submitted prior to June 22. At no point did the NFL indicate that it would need or want to review anything other than the application itself or that submitting the application at or close to the deadline would have any impact on the NFL’s consideration. “Last week, we requested the NFL’s supplemental draft application. The application asked for basic biographical information, responses to four yes-or-no questions and included a small space for Mr. Sorsby to state ‘why are you applying for the 2026 Supplemental Draft?’ It did not provide an opportunity or ask that Mr. Sorsby submit any additional documentation or information. Mr. Sorsby fully completed the application and submitted it to the NFL within hours of receiving it. “Mr. Sorsby’s agent followed up with the NFL to ask if any additional information was needed or if the NFL had any questions. The NFL declined that invitation. “The NFL gave its letter purporting to deny Mr. Sorsby entry to the Supplemental Draft to the media before sending it to Mr. Sorsby. He learned that the NFL was not planning to hold a Supplemental Draft when the media reported it.” Kessler has separately said the NFL’s refusal to allow Sorsby into the supplemental draft violates the CBA and the law. It seems inevitable that Kessler will be taking action on Sorsby’s behalf. Add Conor Orr of SI.com to the list of those backing the NFL: Sorsby, of course, admitted to betting nearly $100,000 on sports. After it became clear that an Infinity Wars–level uprising would take place if Sorsby tried to participate in a college football game this coming season, he set his sights on the NFL. Depending on who you ask, he may or may not have been a legitimate option for a team (though probably not in the near future). The answer doesn’t really matter, at least for now. What matters is the NFL’s ability to be taken seriously as a professional sports entity, alongside profiting handsomely off a multitude of sportsbooks that act as title sponsors and in-game content partners. To this point, I would argue that it has not gone well. While a majority of fans are not overtly suspicious that gambling money alters the outcomes of games, most of them would lean that way if nudged by a gentle wind. Get stuck in one of these Instagram black holes one night after the Chiefs win a game on a phantom holding call. It’s JFK-level deep and reflects the sheer depth of our imagination on the subject. Hilariously, it has not stopped people from losing hundreds of millions of dollars collectively betting on professional football. It will also not stop the NFL from looking blatantly hypocritical, given that its openness to gambling partners probably, in some way, shape or form, helped spike a generation of addicts with similar issues to Sorsby. This is the ultimate bartender’s dilemma: knowing that alcohol sales are imperative to making a living, yet understanding that overserving can lead to an accident far more catastrophic in scope, involving people nowhere near the pub. Although hypocrisy—read, inconsistent punishments for players versus punishments for owners—has never been a serious roadblock for this sports monolith. Enter Sorsby, who is playing the game’s most important position, one that may ask him to someday become the face of a franchise. Having Sorsby enter the supplemental draft would invite months of coverage, not only of Sorsby’s impromptu pro day, but also analysis from endless media about the results of Sorsby’s individual meetings with different teams. The Sorsby sweepstakes would undercut the league’s dominance of the training camp period, which is a necessary crop duster of opiate-grade hope that keeps interest at a fever pitch for the fall. It would also reflect the startling number of teams desperate for a cost-controlled quarterback with upside that would be willing to ignore that Sorsby was a compulsive gambler with only a 30-day outpatient treatment under his belt. I sadly believe that eventually his misdeeds would get baked into our overwhelming obsession with a possible franchise savior emerging from nowhere and costing less than a first-round pick. Our ability to forget the very recent and horrendous misdeeds of others has reached a societally legendary status. Now, Sorsby and his comeback will be neatly buried underneath a quarterback class in 2027 that offers several much better alternatives. Sorsby will have also had time to put in a more convincing effort to kick what is a serious addiction (as a side note, while Sorsby’s camp will posture about the indignity of it all, they are on record as acknowledging that Sorsby wanted more starts to develop as a quarterback, and while he may not be able to play in 2026, he has the requisite runway to hire a private quarterbacks coach and develop his game ahead of next year’s draft without the risk of having his stock tanked by factors outside of his control à la Drew Allar or Garrett Nussmeier). By disallowing Sorsby from entering the draft, the NFL buys itself what it needs most regarding his specific issue: time to set a rock-solid precedent in terms of a punishment that can withstand the near future. Sorsby will not be the last high-profile collegiate player to fall down the purposely addictive rabbit hole of sports betting, or succumb to the attraction of making additional money off a sport they are playing anyway. They will never be immune from the outside influences of immoral family members and friends or, yes, even organized crime. At the very least, the NFL can act like a police detective who stumbles over a heinous crime, wants no part of it, and proclaims that it’s out of his jurisdiction. By inheriting Sorsby, the league takes on the role of final arbiter in a case that collegiate sports have proved too incompetent to fairly adjudicate. Given the NFL’s history of nailing punishments the first time, the prospect of doing so again probably felt like a needless risk to take. The NFL wins because anything smacking of desperation from Sorsby’s camp undercuts its initial message: This gambling problem was a very real addiction, and that Sorsby was as much a victim as he was a perpetrator of some high crime against sports purity. Healing from an addiction takes time. Getting to the root of the issue—of one’s reasons for seeking out this behavior—takes work and rarely fits into a convenient window between the end of one league’s play and the beginning of another’s. Maybe Sorsby and his lawyers will argue loudly that the NFL opened Pandora’s box and now has no moral high ground. And the league will do what it can, knowing this deep down inside, while still trying to establish one anyway. Options for Sorsby from Mike Florio: The NFL’s refusal to hold a supplemental draft has made Brendan Sorsby a man without a team. He could, in theory, attempt to play football elsewhere between now and the 2027 draft. His options, however, are limited. Sorsby could attempt to join the CFL. The regular season, however, has already begun (it started on June 4). If the CFL lets him in — apparently, no team has squatted on his negotiating rights — he’d be way behind the curve. It would be an uphill climb to get on the field in 2026. But it would give him the structure of a team. The routine of practices, meetings, etc. would restore normalcy after a two-month ride that has been anything but. He could also do what quarterback Hunter Dekkers did after permanently losing his NCAA eligibility for underage gambling and for betting on his own team while on the Iowa State roster but not playing. Dekkers spent the 2024 season playing for Iowa Western Community College before entering the 2025 draft. Sorsby also could explore playing for the UFL in its 2027 season. However, that would create an issue if/when he’s drafted next April; the UFL season runs into June. He’d either leave his UFL team prematurely, or he’d miss his NFL rookie minicamp and most of the offseason program. The best option for now could be to challenge the NFL’s failure to accept him into the supplemental draft in court. Attorney Jeffrey Kessler has already made his position on the NFL’s rejection of Sorsby clear. Sorsby, who likely incurred significant legal fees in connection with the successful (but abandoned) effort to play college football in 2026, may not be interested in throwing good money after bad. The next move is up to Sorsby. When it comes to other options for playing football, there aren’t many — and none are ideal. When it comes to fighting the NFL, it could get very expensive (and contentious) and he could spend a lot more money with no guarantee that he’ll prevail. |
| WHO COULD FORCE A TRADE?Garrett Podell of CBSSports.com wonders who in the NFL might have the clout to force a trade the way Giannis Antetokounmpo forced himself out of Milwaukee in the NBA? The player empowerment era has long been in effect in the NBA, but it’s working its way over to the NFL. Cleveland Browns owner and Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Jimmy Haslem is fresh off trading away two of the biggest yet disgruntled stars in each of the United States’ most popular professional sports leagues. He traded two-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year edge rusher Myles Garrett to the Los Angeles Rams on June 1, and he traded two-time NBA MVP and 2021 NBA Finals MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo to the Miami Heat late on Monday night. Garrett wasn’t even the only disgruntled NFL star to have his wish granted to be traded this month with the Philadelphia Eagles dealing three-time Pro Bowl wide receiver A.J. Brown to the New England Patriots, his team of choice, also on June 1. So who could follow in the footsteps of Antetokounmpo, Garrett and Brown next in the NFL? Here’s a look at five potential candidates with a prediction on whether or not they will ask for a trade in addition to potential trade compensation and a potential landing spot if they end up getting moved. Vikings WR Justin Jefferson Minnesota Vikings four-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Justin Jefferson raced out to a historic start to his NFL career: his 7,432 yards receiving from 2020 to 2024 are the most in a player’s first five seasons in league history. That production resulted in Jefferson averaging 96.5 receiving yards per game, which also ranked as the most in NFL history. Then, J.J. McCarthy happened. Minnesota opted to let Pro Bowl quarterback Sam Darnold walk in free agency last offseason because they drafted McCarthy 10th overall in the 2024 NFL Draft. McCarthy wasn’t ready for the speed of the NFL game, ranking dead last in the entire league in completion percentage (57.6%), touchdown-to-interception ratio (11-12), and passer rating (72.6) in 2025. His ineptitude led to Jefferson posting career lows in receiving yards (1,048) and receiving touchdowns (2) in 2025, which dropped his receiving yards per game average down to 90.2 — the second-most in NFL history behind Puka Nacua’s 95.3 average. The Vikings’ quarterback plan going forward is a competition between McCarthy and two-time Pro Bowl quarterback Kyler Murray. Murray’s last Pro Bowl selection came in the 2021 NFL season, the same year Antetokounmpo won an NBA championship with the Bucks. It certainly feels like it’s been awhile since then. From 2022 to 2025, Murray missed 30 of his possible 68 games. In the five games Murray played for the Cardinals in 2025, he averaged a career low 227.0 total yards per game. This year’s quarterback situation in Minnesota could also go poorly. Prediction on whether or not Jefferson will eventually ask for a trade: Yes, by the 2028 NFL offseasonThe McCarthy-Murray competition will fail to bear long-term fruit at football’s most important position, leaving Jefferson dissatisfied entering the final season of his four-year, $140 million deal in 2028. Out of guaranteed money, Jefferson will be looking for a new, multiyear deal at the age of 29, but he’ll aim to get his next batch of guaranteed cash elsewhere. Compensation to get the deal done: First-round pick and third-round pickIt’s a similar package to the one the Patriots used to acquire Brown from the Eagles, but instead of a fifth-round pick, Minnesota gets a third-round draft choice since Jefferson doesn’t come with the same attitude and fluidity questions. Likely landing spot: Las Vegas RaidersIt’s hard to project how the NFL landscape will look years down the road, but the Raiders make plenty of sense for a multitude of reasons. Quarterback Fernando Mendoza, the first overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, will need a true WR1 to complement All-Pro tight end Brock Bowers, and Las Vegas has shown a willingness to trade for a superstar wide receiver at the back of the end their 20s: The Raiders traded a first-round draft choice and a second-round draft choice to the Green Bay Packers in 2022 in exchange for a 29-year-old Davante Adams. They’ll make a similar effort to go all in on their offensive core of Mendoza, Bowers and 2025 sixth overall pick running back Ashton Jeanty. Colts RB Jonathan Taylor Only one running back has been more productive in the 2020s than Jonathan Taylor, and that’s Derrick Henry. Taylor’s 7,598 career rushing yards and 69 career rushing touchdowns in the span of his six-season NFL career are the second-most in the league behind Henry’s totals of 9,185 yards rushing and 84 rushing touchdowns. However, that gap purely comes down to workload: Henry possesses 347 more carries than Taylor (1,858 to 1,551). Taylor’s 90.5 career rushing yards per game average is the fifth best in NFL history behind only four Pro Football Hall of Famers: Jim Brown (104.3), Barry Sanders (99.8), Terrell Davis (97.5) and Eric Dickerson (90.8). Unfortunately for Taylor, the Colts have been wasting his prime with just one playoff appearance and zero playoff wins in his six seasons. That lone postseason visit came in his rookie year back in 2020 when the Colts narrowly lost at the Buffalo Bills in the wild card round. A running back’s prime is finite, and Taylor remains at the top of his game after producing the third-most rushing yards (1,585) and the most rushing touchdowns (18) in the NFL in 2025. If Colts quarterback Daniel Jones (Achilles) and wide receiver Alec Pierce (ankle) can’t get healthy in a hurry, the 27-year-old three-time Pro Bowl back may start looking around for a new home. Not many general managers around the league would keep their jobs after five seasons of postseason-less football, but somehow Chris Ballard has been able to do that in Indianapolis. Prediction on whether or not Taylor will eventually ask for a trade: Yes, by the 2026 NFL trade deadlineTaylor enters the final year of his three-year, $42 million contract in 2026, so if the Colts start off slow thanks to unreliable starts to the year by Jones and Pierce, it would be in both the franchise’s and Taylor’s best interest to part ways at the trade deadline. Compensation to get the deal done: Third-round pick The Carolina Panthers were able to get a 2023 second-round pick, a 2024 third-round pick, a 2023 fourth-round pick and a 2024 fifth-round pick for Christian McCaffrey in 2022, but CMC was a year younger than Taylor is today. Plus, McCaffrey had multiple years left on his contract while Taylor is set to become a free agent in 2027. Likely landing spot: Pittsburgh SteelersShould the Steelers get off to a hot start in Aaron Rodgers’ swan song with his pal Mike McCarthy back as his head coach, Pittsburgh could go all in on the future Hall of Famer’s last season. Jaylen Warren is a nice change-of-pace back, and Rico Dowdle is someone McCarthy said in Dallas could stand to work on his vision as a runner. Taylor would give McCarthy the bell-cow back he’s missed since Ezekiel Elliott’s decline and Tony Pollard’s fibula injury in the 2022 postseason while coaching the Cowboys. Cardinals TE Trey McBrideArizona Cardinals tight end Trey McBride snatched the league’s first-team All-Pro tight end crown off Brock Bowers’ head in 2025. McBride ranked second in the entire NFL in catches last season with 126, just three behind Puka Nacua’s league-leading 129 while his 11 receiving touchdowns tied for the second-most in the NFL. His 1,239 yard receiving were the sixth-most in football while balling out for the rudderless 3-14 Arizona Cardinals. Unfortunately for McBride, he’s playing in the toughest division in football … perhaps ever. The 2025 NFC West became the first division in league history with three 12-win teams — the Seattle Seahawks, Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers — while the Cardinals became the first team to finish nine games worse than every other team in their respective division. There’s not much hope of that hierarchy changing anytime soon unless Arizona stinks again in 2026 in order to land one of the top quarterback prospects in the 2027 NFL Draft. Prediction on whether or not McBride will eventually ask for a trade: Not if the Cardinals can draft a top QB in 2027McBride has two more seasons of guaranteed money on his four-year, $76 million contract. That gives Arizona through the 2027 season to get the quarterback position right. Thanks to playing the Rams, Seahawks and 49ers a combined six times a year, they’ll be in position to secure a top 10 pick in the 2027 NFL Draft. One more year of bottoming out to secure the future of their offense out in the desert. Jets WR Garrett WilsonDespite being shut down with a lingering knee injury in Week 10, the 2022 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year wide receiver still ended up leading the 2025 New York Jets in receiving yards with 395. Wilson played just seven games while producing the fewest receiving yards by an NFL team leader since 1976, excluding the 1982 strike season, per CBS Sports Research. It’s bleak in New York, especially after the Jets made first-year head coach Aaron Glenn fire his offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator and many other assistants after a 3-14 campaign in his first season in charge in 2025. The Jets poured a lot of money and draft picks into fixing their defense that became the first in NFL history to not record an interception in a season, but the offense could still be pretty bleak despite the arrivals of first-round pick tight end Kenyon Sadiq and first-round pick wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr. Their top two quarterbacks on the depth chart are a washed-up Geno Smith and 2026 fourth-round pick rookie Cade Klubnik. Prediction on whether or not Wilson will eventually ask for a trade: Not if the Jets can draft a top QB in 2027 Wilson possesses two more seasons of guaranteed money on his four-year, $130 million contract, including $24.5 million guaranteed in the 2027 season. That gives New York two more offseasons to get the quarterback position right. Fortunately for Wilson, Smith could easily be the tank commander quarterback necessary to position the Jets into a prime opportunity to select one of the best quarterback prospects in a loaded 2027 NFL Draft. Browns CB Denzel WardLike Garrett, five-time Pro Bowl cornerback Denzel Ward is wasting away his prime with the Cleveland Browns. Despite earning Pro Bowl selections in four of the past five seasons, he’s played in just one playoff game in this stretch since 2021, a 45-14 blowout loss at the Houston Texans. Ward is set to enter the penultimate season of a five-year, $100.5 million contract extension, and he doesn’t have any guaranteed money remaining on the pact, which makes him extremely tradeable. Plus, Ward would probably rather learn a new defensive playbook on a team with a shot at the postseason in 2026 than the team with the worst quarterback room in the NFL. Compensation to get the deal done: Fourth-round pick Teams will be stingy with their 2027 draft picks ahead of a draft class everyone and their grandma expects to be full of stars and value selections. Plus at 29 years old, Ward plays a position that typically isn’t known for players aging all that well into their 30s. Likely landing spot: San Francisco 49ersThe 49ers are in win-now mode with an aging roster headed by soon-to-be 38-year-old All-Pro left tackle Trent Williams, soon-to-be 33-year-old wide receiver Mike Evans, soon-to-be 33-year-old tight end George Kittle and 30-year-old running back Christian McCaffrey. San Francisco can afford the swing for Ward in 2026 as the 49ers currently possess the most cap space in football with $71.7 million, per OverTheCap.com, and then they can easily move off him if they desire in 2027 while saving $11.271 million by releasing him. Or with no guaranteed money on his deal, the 49ers can easily rework Ward’s contract to keep him around should they so choose. It’s an arms race in the NFC West, and the 49ers need to keep up with the Super Bowl champion Seahawks and the NFC runner-up Rams. |
