{"id":886625,"date":"2026-05-09T13:42:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T13:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/886625\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T13:42:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T13:42:23","slug":"dianna-russini-broke-the-titans-eagles-a-j-brown-trade-news-with-inside-information-during-affair-with-mike-vrabel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/886625\/","title":{"rendered":"Dianna Russini broke the Titans-Eagles A.J. Brown trade news with inside information during affair with Mike Vrabel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The affair between New England Patriots<\/a> head coach Mike Vrabel and former ESPN\/The Athletic NFL Reporter Dianna Russini helped her break news with inside information of the Titans franchise altering trade of WR A.J. Brown<\/a> to the Eagles.<\/p>\n

Everything changed for the Mike Vrabel era Tennessee Titans<\/a> on the night of the 2022 NFL Draft when general manager Jon Robinson traded star wide receiver A.J. Brown to the Philadelphia Eagles<\/a>, and Dianna Russini was the one to break the entire story.<\/p>\n

With Brown part of the crew, Vrabel\u2019s Titans had a 32-17 record and made the playoffs all three years. The two seasons after the Brown trade Tennessee went 13-21 ending in Vrabel\u2019s firing by owner Amy Adams Strunk.<\/p>\n

Russini and Vrabel\u2019s at least six year affair has taken the sports world and tabloids by storms since Page Six released photos<\/a> on April 7 of the two individuals, married to other people, at a Sedona, Arizona luxury resort, alone, days before NFL Owners\u2019 Meetings in Phoenix.<\/p>\n

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More rounds of images were released dating back to March 11, 2020 of the two kissing in a New York bar<\/a>, which caused Vrabel to hold a second press conference to announce he was skipping day three of the NFL Draft with the Patriots for counseling with his wife. Vrabel promptly returned to the Patriots facility after that weekend.<\/p>\n

TMZ released photos, video, and documents<\/a>, May 7 and 8, of the couple renting a boat on Center Hill Lake in Putnam County, Tennessee in June of 2021. Russini was seven months pregnant with her first born son, named Michael. Many, including A to Z Sports have connected this timeline to Russini\u2019s reporting<\/a> around the Julio Jones<\/a> trade between the Falcons and Titans that same month, where the potential of tampering could be reasonable.<\/p>\n

Friday night, research proves that Russini was the one to break the biggest news of the 2022 NFL Draft: the A.J. Brown trade to Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

Russini\u2019s breaking news, inside information of Titans trading A.J. Brown to Eagles<\/p>\n

Dianna Russini deleted her twitter account on the April 23, 2026 (the day the NFL Draft began), but articles from April 29, 2022 still show her reports via broken embedded tweets.<\/p>\n

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Spring 2022 was a drama filled time for Brown and the Titans as several contract negotiation tactics were deployed by both sides. Brown, entering the final year of his rookie contract, was a budding superstar with 185 catches, 2,995 yards, and 26 total touchdowns in his first three seasons in Nashville. <\/p>\n

The 2019 second round pick was due for a massive payday. He happened to get it from the Eagles after talks broke down with the Titans, which Russini also had inside information about:<\/p>\n

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The Nashville Post has an article still published<\/a> with more details from Russini, via her the diary.bulletin.com blog that no longer exists (https:\/\/thediary.bulletin.com\/from-broadway-to-broad-street).<\/p>\n

“I was told (Brown) cut off communications with his position coach [Rob Moore] and the rest of the coaching staff,” Russini\u00a0reported. “After multiple conversations with sources close to Brown and the Titans, Brown wanted guaranteed money close to $80 million. By the way, I was told this was\u00a0after\u00a0he requested a trade from the Titans.”<\/p>\n

It was a very popular assumption by many in the Nashville market, by media and Titans fans, that Russini\u2019s Titans source was Vrabel. Breaking the A.J. Brown trade on draft night, a night that is owned every year by Adam Schefter, was extra ammo to back up that assumption.<\/p>\n

Like the Julio Jones trade from Jun 2021, the Ryan Tannehill<\/a> over Tom Brady<\/a> report from March 2020, the A.J. trade inside information looks different with the Vrabel-Russini affair public.<\/p>\n

The Titans, as any team would, worked hard to make Brown look like the \u2018bad guy\u2019 in the aftermath of the trade for having unreasonable requests. Russini was there with the \u201cclose to $80 million\u201d guaranteed quote. <\/p>\n

The contract from the Eagles was four years, $100 million, with $57 million guaranteed\u2026 <\/p>\n

Brown even told<\/a> then and current ESPN Titans reporter Turron Davenport that it wasn\u2019t his fault.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis wasn\u2019t my fault. I wanted to stay, but the deal they offered was a low offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Mike Vrabel on the A.J. Brown trade from the Titans to the Eagles in the 2022 NFL Draft<\/p>\n

\u201cI love A.J. personally, but I am very comfortable with how this went down and how (GM) Jon (Robinson) and I were able to navigate,\u201d Vrabel said to local Titans reporters after the draft trade. <\/p>\n

\u201cI try to support (Robinson) and make decisions. Unfortunately, we understand if we are going to be here a while, we are not going to be able to keep every single player that we draft and develop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dianna Russini\u2019s CJ Stroud<\/a> Draft Day report still in question<\/p>\n

The 2023 NFL Draft might have more Dianna-Vrabel relationship linking when she reported on draft day that the Titans were interested in trading up from the eleventh pick to three for Ohio State QB CJ Stroud. <\/p>\n

Russini was originally scheduled to report on the draft from Indianapolis<\/a> for ESPN as the Colts<\/a> held the fourth pick. Instead, she was in Nashville on the day of the first round reporting from the Titans facility, again picking eleventh.<\/p>\n

Yahoo\u2019s Charles Robinson<\/a> reported that the Houston Texans<\/a>, picking second and 12th, had a plan to take Alabama pass rusher Will Anderson<\/a> at two, then trade up to pick five with Seattle for Stroud, until Russini\u2019s reporting about the Titans changed things. <\/p>\n

The Tennessean\u2019s Chris Thomas, via Yahoo Sports syndication <\/a>reported on Russini\u2019s deleted tweets following the Texans taking Stroud at pick two, instead of Anderson, who Houston took at three via trading up.<\/p>\n

The Texans selected\u00a0Ohio State\u2019s C.J. Stroud\u00a0<\/a>with the No. 2 pick, spoiling the Titans\u2019 efforts to select their quarterback of the future early in the first round.<\/p>\n

In the deleted tweet, ESPN\u2019s Dianna Russini reported the Titans withdrew their trade offer with the\u00a0Arizona Cardinals<\/a>, who held the No. 3 pick, after Stroud was selected. One pick later, the Texans traded back up to No. 3\u00a0to select Alabama star linebacker Will Anderson<\/a>\u00a0in exchange for the No. 12 selection later in the first round.<\/p>\n

Russini, who is covering the Titans\u2019 draft in Nashville for ESPN, did not immediately clarify the report.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re one to buy the theories that Russini helped the Titans with the Julio Jones trade in 2021, and then hurt the Titans chances to draft CJ Stroud in 2023, then there are dots to connect four consecutive off-seasons of this affair playing a heavy hand in football transactions.<\/p>\n

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March 2020: Russini reports Titans not interested in free agent QB Tom Brady, extending Ryan Tannehill instead<\/p>\n

May\/June 2021: Russini reports Falcons have \u2018first round offer\u2019 for Julio Jones, only for the Titans to execute the trade for a second round pick<\/p>\n

April 2022: Breaking the A.J. Brown trade, contract negotiation inside information<\/p>\n

April 2023: Russini reports Titans\u2019 interest in trading up for CJ Stroud at third overall, allowing the Texans to adjust their plan ahead of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The affair between New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel and former ESPN\/The Athletic NFL Reporter Dianna Russini…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2068],"tags":[6389,8694,390,1222,2005,6164,25,7,253,2004,24536,11499,838,249,6,242,109,2476,762,394,425,4045,1369,13122],"class_list":["post-886625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia-eagles","tag-2022-nfl-draft","tag-a-j-brown","tag-arizona-cardinals","tag-cj-stroud","tag-colts","tag-dianna-russini","tag-eagles","tag-football","tag-houston-texans","tag-indianapolis","tag-jon-robinson","tag-julio-jones","tag-mike-vrabel","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-nfl","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-philadelphiaeagles","tag-ryan-tannehill","tag-tennessee-titans","tag-the-eagles","tag-the-titans","tag-tom-brady","tag-will-anderson"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116544914472907770","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}