Despite the tabloid headlines swirling around Mike Vrabel and Dianna Russini, the NFL is adopting a strictly hand-off approach when it comes to teams making fun of each other during Thursday night’s schedule release.
The annual schedule release is the one day of the year when NFL teams are unofficially allowed to mock each other. With TMZ Sports and the New York Post still on the warpath, you’d think the league would step in to try to declare the Vrabel scandal off-limits. Right?
Wrong. The NFL is taking the opposite approach, sources tell Front Office Sports. The league is not reviewing videos in advance. Instead, clubs will continue to control the content of their memes and videos from start to finish. The young, aggressive, social media wags at all 32 clubs will be free to mock Vrabel and the Patriots if they wish.
Either way, executives from NFL headquarters are not getting involved in the annual Super Bowl of social media. Especially since Charles Barkley’s Inside the NBA already went there on ESPN by showing Vrabel and Russini in the pose made famous by the movie Titanic.
“This is the day when teams are licensed to poke fun at each other. The (Vrabel story) has become such a public matter that teams can take the shot. You may get a call from the Patriots. But the league is not going to get involved,” one source tells FOS. “The only time Park Avenue messages the teams is around labor, CBA, or the refs. The moments when they’re trying to negotiate—and they want everyone on message. If the Jets, Bills, or Chargers choose to ridicule Vrabel, that’s an issue between the teams. The league doesn’t need to mediate that.”
