The Patriots Have Come Full Circle Now That Mike Vrabel is Catching Strays From Jordon Hudson
For better or worse - mostly better but still oftentimes worse - being a fan of the New England Patriots is not like any other experience in this life. Especially when you wear that fandom very publicly. When it's how people identify you. When you've made it into your career.
Because our relationship is built entirely on trust, I'll admit there are times I wish it were simpler. That I earned a living following some excellent but bland pro franchise. Think the Spurs of the late 90s to mid-2010s. Where all they did was win, replace retiring Hall of Famers with other Hall of Famers, while never generating much in the way of buzz or put a dent in the national conversation.
But then I come to my senses and realize I've been addicted to insanity that has surrounded this particular franchise my entire life. When I was a kid, they built the best team in Pats history, only to have it come out the head coach was breaking his contract and taking a college job, the team got blown out of their own building in the playoffs, and it ended up in court. When I was in college, they made a miraculous, Cinderella run to the Super Bowl, and in two days time, a major news story broke that there was rampant cocaine addiction on the roster, and in a couple of years the were 1-15. That year, a backup tight end named Zeke Mowatt whipped it out in front of a female reporter in the locker room and this otherwise irrelevant team became part of a national discussion on sexual harassment and women covering sports. That's not to mention the controversies of the Dynasty Era.
The point I'm getting at is that with this particular team, chaos is everything, everywhere, all at once. It's the atmosphere you breathe on Planet Patriots. What surprises me about these last few weeks coming after a storybook season is that anything about this team can still surprise me.
And what I should've seen coming is one legendary Pats coach's romantic life intersecting with this legendary coach's romantic life.
Just as Mike Vrabel hit this low point:
... TMZ started posting photos of both him and Mrs. Vrabel minding their own business shopping. (Which I refuse to show because it's fucking vile. I mean, the gossip tabs are treating him worse than an elected official who got caught banging a Chinese spy or stealing money from charities. Which we have a target-rich environment of.) It was at this moment that Bill Belichick's girlfriend took a break from Competitive Cheerleading and calling the greatest football coach of all time a "WAG," to fire shots in Vrabel's direction.
Her ammo of choice? Chris Simms, somehow. It was announced Tuesday that NBC has taken him off Sunday Night Football Duties. And because everything now is caught in the gravitational pull of the massive Black Hole that is this Vrabel story, people assume it's because of this awkward exchange with Mike Florio on Pro Football Talk:
If you can't click the play button, Simms is about to tell Florio what he's been hearing, who then cuts him off with "Stay on target. Stay on target. Stay on target." Badly mangling a Star Wars scene in the process, but clearly preventing Simms from revealing what he was about to say. And several days later, Simms' Sunday nights are now wide open and he's taking a hit on his W-2.
Enter Jordon. Who bless her, found a way to make this story about her.
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And there you have it. Vrabel-Russini meets Belichick-Hudson, together at last. The Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of Patriots controversies. Two great scandals that scandal great together. Dianna and Jordon bumping their rings together and doing the "Wonder Twins Power … ACTIVATE!" thing.
How the two relate, other than both men are part of the great legacy of this franchise, it beats me. Why Jordon is throwing shade at Pro Football Talk, you're guess is as good as mine. I'd think her "WAG" would want her staying out of it because he and Vrabel enjoyed such great success together, but who knows? Maybe that's yet another bridge to his former team that got wiped out in the flood of his breakup with the Krafts, and he's happy to have her set fire to what's left of it.
None of it makes sense. But then, that's been the story of this team since they were the Boston Patriots. There is never a dull moment. And this is another one of those times where that's not a good thing.