Dianna Russini left embarrassed as NFL media comeback descends into nightmare
Dianna Russini left embarrassed as NFL media comeback descends into nightmare
Sahil Kurup Wed, November 11, 2026 at 7:19 PM UTC
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NFL reporter Dianna Russini's new show hit a speed bump right away -Credit:AP (AP)
Dianna Russini’s long-awaited return to NFL media hit a snag before it started: the page that was supposed to carry her debut show was down at the scheduled start time.
The Russini Report, a weekly hour-long NFL show on BetUS TV’s website and X account, was scheduled to premiere Wednesday at noon ET, months after her scandal with Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel. When that time arrived, the BetUS page displayed an error message instead of the show.
“Sorry we’ll be back soon. Please try again later,” the page read. The show’s X account later addressed the outage, blaming its own success.
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“Well… you broke it,” The Russini Report wrote.
“The premiere of The Russini Report drew a record-breaking audience today! We’re adding more seats so everyone gets in. Stay with us! We’ll be back shortly.”`
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Mirror U.S. Sports also received an email from a representative of The Agency Group PR, who said the site went down because of the volume of visitors. “The site crashed due to high traffic volume,” the representative wrote. “They are working to get it back up ASAP.”
The glitch is an awkward start for what had been a carefully planned comeback. Russini, 43, has been off the air since the Vrabel photo scandal cost her a job at The Athletic.
Photos of her and the Patriots coach embracing and holding hands at an Arizona hotel drew widespread scrutiny, and tabloids later published additional images from a 2020 outing at a New York City bar and a 2021 boat outing in Tennessee. Both Russini and Vrabel, who are married to other people, denied any impropriety.
Russini resigned from The Athletic, and in September the outlet released findings from an internal investigation that concluded the relationship gave the appearance of a conflict of interest and was in clear violation of its standards.
Russini resigned from her position at The Athletic following the Mike Vrabel scandal -Credit:Getty
The show did get going after a roughly 45-minute delay — and when it did, Russini opened with a personal note rather than football. She said the months away gave her time to think about her priorities and about being present at home in New Jersey with her husband and their two young sons.
“Over the last few months, I have had a lot of time to think about my life and my priorities and the person I want to be moving forward, and being home in New Jersey with my husband and our two little boys and being truly present,” Russini said. “It gave me so much perspective that I didn’t even know I needed.”
She thanked the people around the league who stayed in touch, saying the conversations helped lead her back to the work.
“I’ve also had a lot of long conversations with people all around football,” Russini said. “Some were about the game, and others were just about life. To the people who picked up the phone and checked in and offered both encouragement and honest advice, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Those conversations helped me find my way back to the work I love and back to myself, right here hosting the show.”
Source: “AOL Sports”
