When Aaron Rodgers appears with Pat McAfee, odds are he’s going to revisit two of his favorite tropes in attacking Anthony Fauci and relitigating the COVID pandemic and attacking the media. And it just so happens that recent headlines gave him the opportunity to do both for his appearance from Pittsburgh Steelers training camp.
Not only did Rodgers continue his six-year streak of criticizing Fauci and mock the former NIAID head for taking the fifth amendment before a bloodthirsty Senate committee more hellbent on attacking him personally than any legitimate COVID inquiry, but he also targeted a former ESPN reporter on ESPN airwaves in Dianna Russini.
There’s no love lost between Aaron Rodgers and Dianna Russini. The quarterback has held a grudge against the reporter for years, dating back to his time with the New York Jets. In 2024, he questioned her lack of journalistic integrity over a report on his future with the team and, well… we know what happened to Russini’s reputation as a journalist.
Flash forward to 2026 and Rodgers criticized ESPN for not talking about Russini’s apparent affair with New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel. ESPN refused to go into much detail at all about the scandal, especially when it came to their former reporter. The network did cover Vrabel around the NFL Draft when he took leave on Day 3 to do family counseling. However, Russini’s name was hardly mentioned. Vrabel now returned to the team and it’s business as usual while Russini resigned from The Athletic and hasn’t been heard from publicly in months.
Is it ESPN’s business to cover the former reporter’s side of the affair and give more credence to the whole story? Aaron Rodgers thinks so and has backup with LeSean McCoy. On Speakeasy, the former running back applauded Rodgers and wants the same energy for the personal lives of reporters and coaches that is traditionally reserved for players.
“Aaron Rodgers is keeping it 💯!! Aaron Rodgers, I respect you brotha”
– @CutonDime25 GOES IN on those being critical of A-Rod for mentioning the Dianna Russini and Mike Vrabel drama on ESPN’s Pat McAfee Show
WE’RE LIVE RIGHT NOW ➡️ https://t.co/bI7QcanJRe pic.twitter.com/yruAKtEbCi
— Speakeasy (@speakeasytlkshw) August 4, 2026
“He’s just keeping it straight 100. Every athlete out here, you want to criticize them if something happens in their personal life, you want to blow it up,” McCoy stated, referencing a number of different scandals and stories that have filled headlines over the years.
“But if it’s not an athlete, you know what happens? They don’t even want to talk about it. No, if you are an MVP voter, you’re that important, why can’t you talk about it and dig deep into it? If everybody has their own opinions about it, it should be talked about even more.”
McCoy then referenced Tom Brady’s divorce and all of the intrigue around Aaron Rodgers’ personal life as examples of players whose personal lives have been covered by everybody.
There are definitely a few unanswered questions on the Dianna Russini side of the saga. What happened with the investigation from The Athletic? Was it ever finished? And what about her votes for NFL awards with the Associated Press? Were those ever studied or scrutinized?
ESPN would probably argue that it’s a personal affair and who Mike Vrabel is entangled with doesn’t matter except for the impact that it has on his football team. It’s not like ESPN covered Joe Buck’s marriage to Michelle Beisner-Buck. If the network started covering the personal of beat reporters instead of the actual players and athletes, their ratings would go extinct because it’s not actual sports news.
However, given who Dianna Russini is and the influence she had in the NFL world, and the implications of how she could use her position to help Mike Vrabel and others, it calls for at least a token amount of self-reflection on the nature of insiders, the power of the media, and the relationships between coaches, athletes, and sources.
