The Athletic concludes investigation into Dianna Russini

0:00Coming up on today's edition of PFT Live, Michael Hollian, I take a close look at the report of the athletics investigation of former NFL insider Diana Roussini plus the ongoing legal battles between LSU and the SEC, all that and much more on this Friday edition of PFT Live. Friday, September 4 edition of PFT Live, it was just 24 hours ago that I was sitting in the studio in Stanford, Connecticut with Christopher David Sims. Now I am back home after a very long day, after one of the days that will try your patience and your soul from the standpoint of travel and no one cares about your travel entanglements. No one cares. They care even less

1:00about your traveling tango months than they care about your fantasy football team, but, Michael Hollian, proud to say that in the game of travel delay bingo, I almost got the cover all over the course of the last 20 years as it relates to my effort. What did you do? Good morning. And good morning. First of all, good morning. How'd you do it? Well, good morning. We had meetings my Florian. I know what you've been through. So let's hear it. Meetings and rehearsals in Glorious Stanford, Connecticut on Thursday, capped by what has become an annual event at the home of PFT Live and not even know that it's coordinating producer. He's just kind of in charge, but he doesn't work anymore. He just tells us what we're doing wrong from time to time. I guess to justify the title, but he was like arm in arm with me when we started PFT Live years ago, planning it,

2:06developing it, I've known him forever. He's now the producer, coordinated producer, perhaps he's in charge of football night America. And I've known him forever. At little get together at his house, has bunch of people over. So when I looked at the flights, the options to get home, I was going to have to either not show up or I was going to have to do a quick, oh hi, how are you? Nice to see you? Hi, hi, no, can't stay. Got to go. Got to go. Got to go. Hi, how's everything? And I wanted to at least go and hang out for a little bit, see his wife, see his kids, his mother was there, his mother and all there. I've known these people for years now, extended part of the family. So I wanted to go. Well, the one way to do that was to take a 920 pm Delta flight from LaGuardia back to Pittsburgh, which when you do the math by the time it lands and

3:08you factor in the drive, if I'm lucky, I'm home at 1230. And look, I usually stay up that late, 1230s, no big deal. I can pull this off. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it now in the interim, I made an appointment to be in Morgantown at 11 o'clock today for some effort to finally fulfill the much procrastinated effort to put some sort of an estate plan in place for my measly assets. So I had to get home because we have this meeting at 11 with a lawyer who's going to be coming up from Charleston to meet at his firm's Morgantown office. So I got to be home. I got to get home, no matter what I got to get home. And it was some point in the middle of the afternoon that of course the Delta flight was canceled. And let me just say as an editorial proposition that

4:13Delta used to be my go to airline. Now it changed when they gave Tom Brady a real job. Not a Tom Brady is a spokesperson of the airline. They gave him a real job. I don't know what the job is, but I think the job consists of be the CEO's friend. The moment they did that, the marker moved from Delta to American. So American became the preferred airline. And unless and until Delta decides they want to sponsor this show, which I think the answer to that is a big fat go. F yourself American is the official. Air line provider of me, not the show, but of me. So low and behold, enjoy who handles our travel. She she loves it when these curve balls are thrown because then that she's at her best. She gets stuff figured out. It's like, well, I don't really love it because I like my I like my

5:16shit to be calm, but she mobilized. Boom 9 p.m. flight on American out of JFK. Well, JFK is not the preferred airport. And as I've said about JFK, if I was a member of JFK's family and I visited that airport, I would say, please take his name off of it. And while you're at it, please name it the Lee Harvey Oswald airport. That's how bad it is. So, oh, well, but, but so I show up at L. H. O. And and before I get there, I start getting the stream of emails from American. And this is through no one's fault. There were storms. There were storms. And I am teetering on the edge of Delirium, but there were storms. And it's like, your flight is delayed,

6:18your flight is delayed, your flight is delayed, your flight is delayed. By the time I read all the emails, the 9 o'clock flight had become a 10 30 flight, which I didn't find out. And here's what here's what even made it more beautiful. I didn't find out until I left Matt Casey's house to go to L. H. O. Airport and could have stayed for three more hours. I left L. H. O. to go to this to go to Lee Harvey Oswald Airport and sit there for hours when I could have stayed and had barbecue, beer, hung out with Mike Tomlin and Maria Taylor and people from the show and Matt's family. But no, I'm on my way to Lee Harvey Oswald. So, the good news was, I'm a big fan of the admiral's club. I had a bunch of miles. I never used the miles on anything at one point lives to you. I stumbled into the admiral's club because Delta has all sorts of rules and you're

7:21going to have a certain level of miles. You got to have a certain mid-dowien or you got to get their credit card. And it's like, this is a pain in the ass. Admiral's club, hey man, just give me the miles. You gave me the miles. I don't use the miles. Got to win your membership. It's great. Food, quiet place to work, great bathroom. So, I'll kill some time at admiral's club. That was the only good part about it. Big fan of the admiral's club. Admiral's club is the official airport lounge. Even at LHO, the admiral's club is acceptable. But along the way, 1030 became 1137. And I'm doing the math because it's an hour and a half to an hour and 45 home from the Pittsburgh airport. So it became 1137. So, and I'm patient like this is a test. This is a test. I'm already been talking about this for seven minutes, but at least you got the Le Harvigal as well joke out of it so far, which I've used before. I can't claim that I just came

8:23up with it in the moment. But, no, it's funny. It's still good. It's good. I took the whole thing, Michael, as serenity now. Serenity now, serenity now. The Frank Costanza realization technique. Can you stay calm in the moment, preserving the right to incessantly wine about it later, but in the moment, can you stay calm? And I did. This is fine. This is fine. Even though the admiral's club closed at 1030, last call, last chance to use the good bathroom. I'm back out in the LHO terminal with the less than ideal bathroom. Not bad though, not bad. Not as bad as old LaGuardia. But it's time and they give you the countdown on the board. Boarding in 10 minutes, boarding in nine minutes. And who believes it after that? The plane arrived after the night you had the plane arrived. Who believes the count down? I was I was tracking the plane from Cleveland. It was a plane from Cleveland that was delayed

9:23because of storms. The plane was in the air. Thank God. The plane landed. I'm check it. I see it pull up to the gate. Ah, this is yes. I have a chance to get home by 2 a.m. and get four hours of sleep. Yes. And the countdown's on eight minutes to boarding. So at two minutes to boarding, the gate attendant gets on the the CB. And you know, sometimes even if you're standing right there, you can't hear what they're saying. Well, they didn't have a crew for the next plane. No crew. So put the next square on the bingo card. No crew. Gotta wait for the crew. And that feeling of standing, you're looking down this endless hallway. Where are the people in the white short sleeve dress shirts, blue ties with the epilets on top? Where are they? Where are they? And then a couple of them come down and they can, hey, here they are. It's like psych. They just

10:23keep going. It's like son of a, and so you're waiting and you're waiting and I'm standing there thinking I'm standing here. The longer I stand, they're coming. They're coming. I'm standing. I'm waiting because they're coming. So I finally went and sat down. So they eventually, they eventually show up. They eventually show up. Eventually we get on to the plane. And then when we're on the plane, we get the pick up the phone and they address. We have overbooked the flight by one seat. We need a volunteer to surrender their seat. Unbelievable. And you know, they have to, they have to do it like five times. Well, you know, it turns out there's a third pilot hiding in the cockpit who had to be somewhere. So as soon as some sucker took the offer, whatever it was and got off the plane, coincidentally, the door to the cockpit swings open. Out comes pilot number three who goes and sits in the seat. I guess the jump seat was too small for him. So they, they overbooked the flight. So finally, finally, we had everything but mechanical delay and crash and

11:30Cilla and Caribdus. We had everything but those. Finally, we make the taxi. Finally, at 1245, it's wheels up. Yes, wheels up at 1245. Finally, for the one hour and five minute flight, 1245, 1246, something like that. Finally, we're wheels up and that hour and five minute flight seemed to take a hell of a lot longer. It seemed to take a hell of a lot longer. And it finally lands at 230. So 230 wheels down, raining, no issue, fairly smooth landing. So pilot comes on and we get the last. There is one more circle to put on the bingo card. Pilot comes on and says, good news. We're able to land. Well, yes, I'm aware of that since we are sitting here and not burning in a pile of wreckage. Thank you. Thank you for letting me know the good news is we've landed. The bad news is there were thunderstorms in the area and they would not

12:34put the gate out until the storms had cleared the area. So give me up this plane. 45 minutes later at 315 in the morning. At 315 in the morning. I disembarked from the plane, walked through the door here at PFT World Headquarters, 452 AM. Now, I did not off on the plane a little, but you know how restful that is. Just like, I don't know, just long enough to just like wake up and wonder where the hell you are. And I did sleep some in the car on the way home and help that I wasn't driving. But not, I mean, it wasn't much and it was not very restful. So, so anyway, happy Friday. And I was so tempted. Happy. I was. I was so tempted to exercise

13:37the prerogative. And I say all the time, one of these days, I'm just not going to show up. One of these days, you know, I'm just going to go off and I'm just going to screw it. I have at least one where I can just say, I'm not doing it today. What are they going to do? I'm just not doing it. I'm not even going to make up an excuse. I'm just not doing it. So I really thought about saying, hey, you know what? I just can't. I just can't. I can't sit and talk for two hours, especially when an hour after the show ends, I got to get in the car and go to Morgantown. I can't do it. I got to sleep. I can't do it. But show must go on. Even if we spend the first 15 minutes of talking about my travel adventure about which no one gives a flaming bag of poo. So again, I say good morning. Yes, they do. It is great to be home. Yes, they do. I feel like a dizziest. I feel like a dizziest. Give me the bow so I go, boy, I'm going to win it. I'm not quite sure that's the sound effect, but it is great to be home. How are you? Listen, I'm doing great. I'm

14:41doing I'm doing much better now. That was a very entertaining story. And I think people do care because everybody can relate. Everybody has a travel story where they go, oh, you won't believe what happened to me. Now this is this takes it. Now the people want to know Mike Floreo and you probably couldn't have done this because if you wanted to hang out and have a good time, Matt Casey throws a hell of a party. I know that. So if you want to hang out and have a good party and eat some good food and drink some great liquor, you probably couldn't do it this way. But what's the drive from New York to your house? How long? A drive. Oh, it would have been, it would have been eight hours. I did when the flight guy canceled. Yeah, eight hours. When the flight guy canceled. Okay. I had that little flash in my brain that the guy I was going to get in touch with the guy who drives me back and forth the airport and say, just come get me a new or shell. And I'm thinking he gets me, you know, gets me around 10 get home about six. I would have been in about the same boat.

15:50It just wouldn't have been I would have been able to stay. I would have been able to stay and I would have had a, I would have had a, yeah, I think I could have hitchhiked home faster than I would have been able to lay out home. Yeah, he pulled, he pulled up to the house. You don't have to deal with the airport because part of part of travel, part of the annoying part is actually going through all the airport rituals. Mike, when I used to cover basketball and I just covered the NBA and it's an 82 game season. Everybody knows that. And then if your team's any good, you're going to make the playoffs. I'm telling you by the time I got to game 60, I don't care where the trip was. Game 60, just get tired of hearing. It's airport language, you know, and put your seats up and then, you know, you know, the, you know, the closest exit is here and then, you know, make sure if you have a child, you make sure you put your stuff on. Like, oh my god, just get so tired of it. So right around game 60, if I could drive or take the train, I would take the train just

16:55because I got tired of dealing with the airport. So if you, if you can avoid the whole airport ritual, that may be worth it, even though the time is about the same, you get a driver, get in and five, get in and four, 52, what's the difference? And you have some sleep. You have a driver, you can sleep back there and know you're in good hands. And, and the driver doesn't give you these, these fake updates either. Well, you know, we just, hey, ladies and gentlemen, don't worry. All we have to do is just just got clean up the plane. We got to do some paperwork here, dot some eyes, cross some teeth. We'll be fine. We'll be in the air in a second. No, we won't. I know we won't. You're telling me something that I know is not true. Stop it. And it only gets worse as the weather turns and they deice, which they need to do. Need to keep the plane, you know, in the air. So I have no problem with that, but that adds to it as

17:55well. So that's all coming. Now this year's travel adventures. And I hope it isn't a harbinger of what this season is going to be like. We go to Seattle on Monday, back on Thursday, back to LaGuardia, LGA, not LH, oh, on Saturday of next week for the week one game between the Cowboys and the Giants at MetLife Stadium back home from LGA, not LH, oh, the following Monday. And then I'm into the some weeks I'll stay home, some weeks I'll travel, some weeks it's by car. Charlotte, not that far, five hour car ride. Check. DC Land over Maryland, four hour drive check since an adda, four hour drive check Pittsburgh, two hour drive or less check. So there's several games where I'm not going to have to do the airport thing. And the only thing I'll miss is my time at the very enjoyable admiral's club presented by

19:01American Airlines, unofficial partner of Prof. Ball Talk dot com and willing, at least on our end to do business with American Airlines, but not Delta, which gave Tom Brady an actual job instead of just making him a spokesperson, even if the job is be the CEO's friend. All right, here we go. Friendship or something more than friendship ended up creating a problem for Patriots coach Mike Vrable and former athletic NFL insider Diana Rossini. April 7 is when the mayor as they would say in France hit the fan with photos that emerged of the two of them at Sedona, Arizona in the days preceding the league meetings that occurred in late March of this year. And I remember when the photos first came out. I remember looking at them wondering, what am I seeing? What does this mean? The interlocking fingers were the only thing that

20:01anyone could point to objectively like, who do you interlock fingers with? It is a platonic friend. Right. I mean, hope that it's not a common move. Let's interlock fingers. So that was the the sketchiest of the photos, but I still don't know what to do with it. Until I saw that there were some statements issued from Ray Boone Rossini and also the athletic strongly strongly it's laughable. Mike Vrable, laughable laughable Rossini strongly strongly disputing that there was any potential or apparent impropriety because remember, it's not just avoiding a conflict of interest. It's avoiding the appearance of a conflict of interest at the very high journalistic standards of the athletic via its corporate parent, the New York Times has in place. And the athletic came out with very strong statement. And then it kind of went from there and not in a good direction.

21:01Rossini resigned a week later. The athletic in the interim had begun an investigation of her reporting to see whether it was in any way tainted by this actual or perceived conflict of interest. And it just dragged on and on. It was early June where the executive editor of the athletic told staff that was very concerned about this, especially the Times employees because they can be a little snooty and they thought the athletic was being held to a lower standard than the rest of them are being held to. As of early June, it was a few weeks away. Well, a few months later, we get the outcome. And that's why we're talking about people say why you want to talk about it when those developments. We don't just gratuitously talk about it. We've had enough of it. You've had enough of it. But there was a development we had been waiting for for a long time. And we were at the point, Mike, where there are only two developments left. One, the athletic announces the outcome of its investigation and two Rossini addresses her side of this. She's never addressed

22:03her side of it other than the issue of flat denial other than to claim when she resigned that people in the media were engaged in speculation that was unmoored from the facts. That was her line unmoored from the facts other than that. She hasn't addressed the situation until the aftermath of yesterday's announcement by the athletic. So I'll throw it to you to help us understand what exactly did the athletic conclude in this probe of Diana Rossini's work? Excellent question, Mike. I thought the same thing when I read it. I said, what is this? What exactly are you doing? This is an investigation. So I just want to lay it out here for people and you make your own judgment. So they had an investigation that Diana Rossini did not participate in. They didn't talk to Diana Rossini. They did not have her phone. So the phone was not a part of the

23:04investigation. I think the phone is a pretty good player in this. I think there's a probably a treasure trove of information there. So no phone, no Diana Rossini. Instead the athletic investigation, they went with publicly, but these are their words. They went with publicly available information, hundreds of articles and hundreds, a couple of hundred podcasts appearances, and they're going through all this stuff. You know what they conclude, Mike? Oh, by the way, I got ahead of myself. There's one other piece of information that I left out. They weren't really focused on the nature of the relationship between Mike Ravel and Diana Rossini. No, that wasn't it. They just wanted to see, they wanted to see if there was any kind of bias in the coverage because of the attention that the relationship got, but they're not really diving into the relationship. So Mike,

24:06the athletic concluded that after 900 articles going through there, vetting those and 200 podcasts and Diana Rossini, he's a pretty damn good reporter who had a couple of missteps that needed editor's notes and amendments. And there were a couple of things that were a little shaky there. I'm being a little sarcastic, but hey, after reading this, my thought was, hey, why don't you, why don't you guys just go rehire Diana Rossini? Figure work out. No, there's no butt. Go ahead, bring her back. Hey, work has no, I don't really know issues here. Just a couple of little things here. We talked to 14 colleagues, colleagues say Diana has amazing sources, knows executives and scouts and coordinators and coaches and, you know, a really hard worker and all these things. Mike, I know the New York Times parent company. When the New York Times

25:08says, you're going to set you as a target. In most cases, when they say, we're going to do a deep dive into what you're doing, it's pretty uncomfortable. You don't want to be in that position where the New York Times is saying, okay, you're it. And we are going to throw our might and throw our resources behind you. I mean, this is all the news that's fifth of print. This is, this is the paper of record in the country. The number one newspaper in the country. And they came up with something that was meh, underwhelming. I was like, what is this? I don't even know what like, what's the point? And I think I think the answer is the point is to save itself. We have credibility, we have standards. At that point, it's not even about Diana Rossini. It's about the athletic protecting itself and saying, hey, this is how we, this is how we roll. These are our standards. And this is where the standards were a little got low murky. When arrived from what we want. But hey, look, everybody, we're all good.

26:19And you make an excellent point. They were in a difficult spot because and ESPN is in this same predicament. I saw that Ben Strauss had an article commenting on the athletics final report. I didn't see anything in Strauss' article regarding ESPN failing to address Diana Rossini's reporting while she worked there in the months and years after the far more than the last year. And the pandemic photos that were taken at a club in Tribeca on the day that the pandemic officially began the Rudy Go Bear Day, March 11 of 2020. Photos of the two of them, like you look at the photos from Sedona. You're not quite sure what you're seeing. You look at the photos from Tribeca from six years earlier. You know what you're seeing.

27:20You can just tell we know it when we see it. Right. So as Potter Stewart once said, Google it, kids, you know it when you see it. And there was some reporting that she did in 2021 and around the trade that sent Julio Jones from the Falcons to the Titans that and we've written about this. You can find it at PFT. Just search Julio Jones in the search box. There haven't been many mentions of Julio Jones since we wrote about this. But there were irregularities in the reporting that may have been intended to help the Titans get Julio Jones at the best possible value. No reference to that by the athletic, no reference to that by ESPN. And I think the athletic needed to be careful about what it knew or should have known before any of this ever happened. Because when you take a step back, when you broaden the lens,

28:21this is one of the realities of hiring an insider, the way that the job has evolved insider and journalist are two very different things insider says the clippers have been cleared journalist says the clippers are guilty. Right. That's the difference between insider and journalists. There's a lot of water carrying. There's a lot of favor trading. There's a lot of subject avoiding by insiders who leverage relationships and will abuse their platforms from time to time, either affirmatively or by omission. Sure to help their sources, journalists don't do that. And I think the big takeaway is, and look, they didn't replace I was not going to be a new York Times editorial standards can never be met by an insider and one of the things they pointed out. One of the things they pointed out was the fact that she helped broker an interview of my

29:27label. That's inside insiders are kind of like fixers and they're big domes in a certain way like they they use those relationships to help the business do the things the business is trying to do. You're trying to set up an interview with somebody. Oh, the insider has good relationships here. Help us out with this. That's not what a reporter does. It's what an insider does. So I agree with you. They were in a tough spot here. Because if they take this too far, they are inviting people like us looking at this saying, well, why did you allow that? Did you not realize that that's how this went? Do you not realize who you were hiring? What you were hiring? I'm not saying she did anything wrong. Is it relates to the rules that apply to insiders? There's a different set of rules that apply to insiders. And yeah, did she have an actual or apparent conflict of interest? Yes, they all do. That's why they get nervous. That's why they get nervous when it comes up when you get Adam Schefter on the radio in Philadelphia and it's aaba, aaba, aaba, aaba, it's because he doesn't want the underbelly to be exposed. We need in rap report gets defensive about it. He doesn't want us talking about how that sausage gets made. That's the reality. They cross that bridge when they hired her. That's the deeper issue. And this report doesn't tell us anything.

30:54That we shouldn't have already known. And if they pushed it into farther, they would have only made it more glaring. Yeah, you're right. They don't want to. And that's the thing I've thought the entire time when they talked about the standards, the time standards. This is a violation. Now, this is where I will use the word might be able laughable. It is laughable. When they talk about that as it relates to insiders, it's almost like your parents are not going to be able to do that. You're from a different era. You have to know, this is not about Diana Rossini. It's about the position. So if you're going to hire an NFL insider, an MBA insider, and for that matter, let's just, let's expand it a bit. If you have a political insider, if you have a film industry insider, and they're getting, and they are respected in the business, and they come away with these top interviews, and they have insights that nobody else gets. How are they getting that?

31:58And they know always woodward and burn scene stuff. That's from the 1970s today to get that type of insight and that type of information. Sometimes you're going right up against the line. You're going to write up against it. And sometimes you're crossing it. You're just crossing it. Back to our Eddie Murphy reference. You dip your toe in the water. It's out. It's out. It's out. You really are. And not toe. So if the times wants to be in the space, it requires, it requires either accepting the realities of the business now, 2026, or you have to look away a bit. And I don't know if you want to really get into it, if you really want to do an investigation, I think they be, they might be a guest at what they find across the board.

32:58Because that's just how you get information. And if you don't do it, and I'm not judging, I'm not judging. Really, I'm not. If you don't do it, you know your competitor will. Hey, those are not my, I'm not doing that. That's not I'm not going to go out to that kind of establishment. I'm not going to trade in that kind of information. Okay. Then you'll get scooped. It's reality. Somebody else will get it if you don't do it. What the editors and the producers value is directly proportional to what they'll tolerate when it comes to that. We want the information. We'll tolerate the lapses, the gray area that may go along with you getting information. And part of it too is this disingenuous idea that when you are one of the insiders who is on the text thread. When a player agrees to terms on a new contract that is going to be announced minutes after the text is sent to the insiders who are just sitting around waiting for the phone to ding.

34:15And then it gets sold like it is the product of Woodward and Bernstein. That's what's disingenuous. And I've said this from time to time. Nobody's digging around in dumpsters. Nobody's meeting with secret sources in parking garages. Nobody's taking pieces of shredded paper. And lining them up to try to get to the truth. That's not what this is. It's a magic trick. It's made to look like reporting. It's not. It's not. It is positioning yourself to get the announcement before the announcement is made. As I've said many times, 95% if not more of the journalism in this space is not journalism because it's just an advance announcement of something that is going to be declared to the world anyway.

35:15That was what Diana Rossino was doing at the athletic that is what Adam Schaefter does at ESPN. That is what Ian Rapp report does at NFL ESPN or ESPNFL. That's what it's more economical ESPNFL. I'm going to I've tried to like from time to time just refer to the conglomerate now that ESPN owns NFL network as ESPNFL. So that's what they do. The challenge is find out the stuff that they don't want us to know. But see if you do that, you run the risk of alienating your sources because if your goal is to have the broadest possible network of sources who will hand this to you spoon feed this to you unrequested is just implied. I want this. Give it to me whenever you have it. Okay, whenever you have anything that you think I may want to give it to me just text me and I'll I'll boom, I'll put it from boom copy paste the text message and tweet the thing. I've seen that happen. I've seen it happen. I've told the story. How did happen recently where I was like, why they sent me the text. I don't play that game.

36:23And oh, man, I've multiple insiders. The exact text I got had been copied and pasted into the tweet sent. So if you start going after the things that they don't want us to know, some of your sources are going to get upset. So they avoid those things. They just avoid it. They ignore it. Look the other way, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain because he's going to undermine their ability to get the information. And I'm not criticizing. I'm just helping people understand it. And that's what the athletic had when it hired Dan and Roussini. So if the end result, Michael Holly was that there was a violation of the policy based upon the relationship with Mike variable. Roussini's relationship with variable was in clear violation of the athletic standards, regardless of whether the relationship was romantic. It was a breach and should have been disclosed. The appearances surrounding her relationship with variable undermines our audience's confidence in her impartiality.

37:28Every insider would fail that test. She just failed it in a way that page six was interested in. Page six is uninterested in all the thousands of dollars that shepherds spends to send chocolates at Christmas time to his sources. They're not interested in that. They're not sending. They're not taking photos of boxes. Showing up at the source's houses and posting them on page six. It just so happened that the conflict of interest here. The thing that affected her impartiality here was something salacious and titillating and. Yeah, and became the subject of that expose. Yeah, and mention the word relationship. So it's a romantic relationship. And in this case, the romantic relationship was problematic for them, but it could have been another type of relationship that also. They said they never came to a conclusion. They never get it. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. I don't want to go down that path, but it doesn't matter. The relationship itself, whatever it was, it crossed the line and rendered her impartiality undermined.

38:41And I would say it's almost so this is one of the this is one of the steps that we were looking for is one of the events. So we've got this investigation. I think we can move on from that. It didn't really have much there in the investigation. As you mentioned, still have to hear from Diana Rossini. But also I think there's another. I mean, there's probably another story coming. Not not from the athletic slash New York Times, but we're getting to that point, Mike. It's. We have the first game on Wednesday, first game in the season, standalone game, Seahawks Patriots. And that's the time. If you're going to be working on a story and if you're from another outlet, that's the time where you start to prepare your story or to release your story because you're going to have the whole world looking, the whole NFL, NFL world looking at you.

39:43So I wouldn't be surprised if if another story is coming Monday or Tuesday, probably Tuesday, Monday, holiday, Tuesday right before the game or day of game. And Michael, I've been saying for weeks that if Diana Rossini wants to tell her story and at some point she needs to Michael McCarthy of front office sports reported yesterday that she is absolutely going to return to sports media sooner rather than later. I think you got to tell your story either before or immediately upon taking that new job. I don't think the audience is going to want to hear anything from you other than what happened. Tell us what happened. And the problem is, and look, I'm trying to be fair to the facts here. I don't know her very well. But even if I did and even if I felt like and there's been plenty of people throughout the course of this, people who are respected journalists that won't talk about it because they're, they're her friend, which just encapsulates the whole problem of having these friendships.

40:54You have to be detached to a certain extent. So you're not thinking, oh, I don't want to impair my friendship, even though my friend may have done something that requires me to say things that possibly will affect the friendship. It's just this weird, weird thing. But the story at some point needs to be told because it hasn't been told. And there are issues with her overall credibility because of this. The times pointed to that there were issues of trust. She didn't tell them that the New York Post had these photos for 48 hours. She only told them as the post was getting ready to publish. Remember the report hired a crisis consultant right out of the gates. I think she tried to find a way to fix this on her own without having to tell the bosses. And then in that lengthy New York Times article. You connect the dots and the takeaway is she didn't give all of the photos to the boss. And once the boss saw all the photos, the boss felt differently than he did when he crafted the statement that supported her unconditionally.

42:03So there are trust issues there. And then have we forgotten about this bizarre fabrication that she went on Stugots and company from the Super Bowl and bragged that she had been pulled over for texting while driving and had face time to head coach who helped get her out of it. And that was just made up. Now she had been pulled over didn't have we finally saw the body cam video and she drops some names right she tried to she tried to schmooze the officer by regaling him with regga dosio about her job and who she knows but she didn't face time anybody. She didn't face time anyone. So is an audience going to believe her that's for the next employer to decide. I personally don't think she can ever report again because I think anything she claims is going to be subject to the obvious question of is she just making all this up to advance her broader agenda and good luck going back to Twitter.

43:08Good luck. All I'm saying is good luck. It's a cesspool. She had one toe in the water, one toe in the hot tub, retweeting a colleague's article and the cesspool did cesspool things and that's never going to go away and she's deleted her account. I don't and so that's the lifeblood of her of an insider. You got to go to Twitter and you got to drop your news. If you can't go to Twitter, you can't be an insider. So I think she's got a she's got to roll somewhere, but you got to tell your story. And you better be in a capacity where you aren't expecting people to take your word for something. There was an actual hot tub right in Sedona. It was an actual hot tub involved. I didn't see I didn't see Dr. Joyce brothers anywhere. I didn't see Dr. Joyce brothers with Eddie Murphy anywhere. Dr. Joyce come on, come on into the hot tub. But I would say you're right that most people will say I want to hear something about it.

44:17It depends on how she describes the story. If you listen because if she's on a podcast, let's say it sounds like she's got a job already. It's already lined up. That's why the absolutely it sounds very. Sounds like there's a deal in place somewhere. This is the PR strategy being unfolded. I think you're right. This is the PR strategy. We're just going to we're going to let this guy to hand pick somebody we're going to give this to him. We're going to just introduce get everybody comfortable with the idea that it's coming. I agree with you. It's coming. It's it's going to it's going to be there soon. But let's say in the first podcast, she tells all which an audience will love. If she tells it all and if she is honest and vulnerable. Okay. Then maybe there will be a portion of the audience that will say, okay, I respect it. All right. I feel like she she gave it up. She she really told us what was happening. And this is something her her her fallibility is something I can relate to her.

45:29Going through this embarrassment and having to have these conversations with her husband or whatever it depends on the extent of the sharing. The more you share, the more you'll have people on your side. However, the more she shares, it makes life difficult for the head coach of the New England Patriots because if she tells it all, if she tells the truth, I'm just saying this for example, if she says, yeah, we were in love. If that if that comes up, oh boy. Oh boy. It opens up a whole new realm of conversation for Mike Ravel and the Patriots and that won't go away all season. So it's interesting. If she if she thinks about what's best for her career, because Ravel has done what's best for his career, his career has continued. He has been able to shut it down. We're moving on. You know, went through training camp and preseason. They're getting ready for the season. More people ask him about Christian Gonzalez and they do Diana Rossini these days. So he's done what's best for his career.

46:39If she does what's best for her career and tells the story so she can move on to media, then it's going to be bad for him. If she does it. If she tells it truth. It's bad for him. And I had forgotten about all of this because we move on to other things. And again, we're only talking about this today because there was a significant development yesterday and we're five days away from the first game. There isn't a whole lot going on. And this is something that falls into both of our wheelhouses. So before you start emailing saying talk about something else, I respectfully say we're going to talk about this because I would submit to you. This is the only place you're going to find this level of discussion and nuance on the top. Today, especially because there are plenty of people in the media that won't talk about it at all because they don't want to talk about their friend. But if she tells her story, it has to be objectively credible. It has to be plausible. If she says it's all made up. If she says, yeah, whatever, pick an excuse other than we've been talking about.

47:49Then we were involved romantically. People are going to say, I saw those pictures from Tribeca. I don't buy it. And when you've already compromised your own integrity. As agent Marvin Demoff once said to me, you only lose your integrity once once you've compromised your integrity by fabricating this claim of using FaceTime with a head coach to get yourself out of a ticket. People are going to be looking at anything you say skeptically. So you better tell a compelling story. And the more compelling the story is. And true, hopefully, hopefully at the end of the day, it's all true. But if it's a cynical view that she's going to try to best position herself for a successful return and variables already done everything that he's needed to do to allow a successful continuation of his career, I'll go one step farther than I fell in love. Okay, we were in love, which as you said, would cause significant problems for coach variable. The one thing.

48:57And this goes all the way back to when this all first happened and there was talk about a double standard. And yes, there's a double standard because one party's job relies upon the appearance of impartiality, at least if you're going to work for the New York Times and they pretend you're a reporter and the other party's job doesn't. So there are it's a double standard because there are two standards in two different jobs, but Michael the one way. And I've talked about this maybe here, I've talked about it on WEEI. And I always add this preface. I am not saying this happened, I have no idea what happened, I have no idea what she would ever say, but the best case for her and the worst case for him goes like this. I was trying to get by an industry dominated by men.

49:58I got too close to the source. And at one point, the source suggested an arrangement for soon to which I would get all sorts of scoops in exchange for certain things. I would get all sorts of information. And as long as I lived up to my end of the bargain, he would live up and up live up to his end of the bargain. And along the way we developed personal relationship. It was all very transactional. Quit Pro Quot. Quit Pro Quot. And it's a form of sexual harassment. Quit Pro Quot sexual harassment. If she would ever tell that story, that is when Mike Vrable has a problem under the internal policies and procedures of New England Patriots football club incorporated that's when he has a problem under the NFL's internal policies because that is when you are abusing a position of power.

51:03To leverage it for the things that he was requesting in return. If that's the story she tells. I don't know what she's ever going to say, but Michael, she tells that story. Boom. She's a victim. Boom. He's toast. If she ever tells that story. And you know, Mike, it's a good point. What we don't know is their relationship today. Now I'm not saying that in a in a salacious way. I'm not saying that like, oh, is she mad at him? Is she mad? Or are they still friendly? Right. Perfectly fair point. Right. And that's the that's the question because if if he wants to if he wants to move on and he wants what's best for her, maybe it is a now it's a it could be a transactional relationship. Listen, it doesn't do you any good to tell all is that good for you?

52:10Is that good for me? I won't say anything about you. You don't say you still want information right? We can just move on. You still want information right? Right. Hey, what's this? What's this new job you have going on? How can I be helpful? Oh, God. How can I be helpful in this new position? I don't know. It's that that determines a lot of where we go from here as well. If it's if it's contentious, if there's no relationship, that has to terrify Mike Vrable and his employers. And if he has not been in contact with her at all, even through a third party, fourth party, he didn't know what she's thinking. He didn't know what she's doing. He didn't know what she's planning. That's terrifying. Because it's just totally unpredictable. You got to think about the Seahawks next week and you also have to think about what's the announcement the day before the game, the day of the game, the day after the game. What's coming?

53:16It's it's a it's a tough position for him as well. Let's carry. And Michael, I think that it would be fair to infer based upon the available objective evidence, the multiple things he said at press conferences, his decision to leave the Patriots on the third day of the draft to attend counseling with his family. I think it would be fair to come to the conclusion that they don't talk anymore that part of the effort to hold his own current existence together, consisted of never talking to that woman again. I would suspect that there if it's consistent with what he said, they haven't taught. And based upon the things he said publicly, which tend to blow up her story. He deviated from the agreed to script that they came up with when they coordinated after the photos first were given to her. There's a chance she's not happy with it. So here's the latest from Brable.

54:26Yesterday, the question was asked because it needed to be it needed to be asked the report came out yesterday. It was an issue that caused Mike Brable to miss the third day of the draft can't be salty. Mike Brable can't be upset New England Patriots yesterday was a key moment in this story. So here's the question followed by Brable's response. Mike, the athletic release or published its findings after its review into the University needs reporting. Curious if you have any reaction to that. I know. I don't have any reaction. No more moved on and focused on Seattle and focused on the Patriots and focused on getting better this week. You feel like that situation is fully behind you? I'm trying to just say that I've moved on and excited about this new opportunity here as we start this season. So not a surprise because what I've heard is the vibe in and around the organization is they've moved on and nobody has an issue with it. Nobody has any questions about Mike Brable.

55:31They have rallied around him. He is still their guy. They have a common goal of winning as many football games as possible and they have moved on. Now last night during the extended travel delay, I perused Twitter from time to time and I saw a clip from a show in Boston and I can't remember who it was. But somebody said and I haven't seen this anywhere but one of the people and you may know what I'm talking about. I don't know that Brable apparently chirped at Phil Perry after the fact for asking that question. Hey Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, you can't you can't be you can't be sorry about this. You can't you've you've opened Pandora's box and Pandora was in there. You can't just act like that never happened. You made this an issue the first time you talked about it into a microphone and it became a big issue when you were absent for the third day of the draft because of it. So you can't be upset that people are trying to do their jobs.

56:34Look, I work with Phil Perry. He is as solid as they come Mike and fair. He's one of the reporters. He's kind of he's new school and old school that he does all the things that that modern reporters do. But here's the here's the twist. He shows up. He shows up every day. So I know a lot of coaches and players are upset with people who have a lot to say but they never see them around but he's in the locker room all the time. He has to ask that question. That's a good journalist. There's just no way this reporter is going to be released. It was the number one story in the NFL in the spring. It was it was probably bigger than the draft. Story the off season story the off season. Yeah, and it's there's the the athletic releases is it's investigation. And you've got Mike Vrayble available and no one asked the question. Of course you have to ask and the initial question and the follow up question.

57:41I thought we're very fair and allowed Vrayble was not a leading question. It was not a troll question. Hey, I'm going to throw this out to you and I'm going to allow you to answer in the best way that you see fit. And he did. He should have no issue with no barrier or anybody else who wants to ask about this. It's in the news. It's it's relevant. And to get back to the point we were making earlier about insiders versus reporters. A reporter asks that question. An insider does not. Because the insider does not want to upset the source. The reporter is doing his or her job. And in all fairness, the source should not be upset. But when you operate in a world that is composed of insiders who will skate around certain topics that might make the source look bad.

58:44You tend to gravitate toward them when it's time to engage in the inherently discretionary task of deciding who gets the information. The inside information that is not public that I have access to who gets it. The insider who hasn't said anything that would frustrate me or the reporter who pissed me off by daring to do his job. That's the fundamental difference between the two jobs. It makes it harder to be a reporter in this world when there are insiders out there who will not ask the tough questions who will not cover the delicate subjects because they want to stay close. Keep your friends close and your sources closer. They want to stay close and on the good side of their network of every every neuron in that vast network of sources. They don't want to burn one of them. So that's the point we've been making. And that's the best example of it. If label was pissed about that. Yeah.

59:54Because a reporter asked him a question an insider never would have posed to him. I heard that little that little pilot's voice in my ear. We need to. Yeah. We got a break. Yeah. We got a break. Screw you pilot. I've heard enough from pilots over the course of the past 12 hours. Gary would like to take a break. We have been talking not because of anything we said because we've gone a full hour and we've been trying our damages lately to not have two minutes segments on the back end of the show. Some days we succeed. Some days I got home at 4.52 a.m. So sorry in advance Gary and anyone else we've got more PFT live for you right after this.