With internal investigation still pending, the New York Times publishes a lengthy story about Dianna Russini

Last week, I said there were two developments that could bring the Mike Vrabel-Dianna Russini story back to the front burner. As it turns out, there was another way it could have been dusted off.

Beyond The Athletic announcing the outcome of its internal investigation of Russini (number one) and Russini going public with her side of the story (number two), a third path for resurrecting the issue was looming — a lengthy New York Times article regarding the ordeal.

It’s a significant article, for several reasons. First, it contains several new revelations. (More on those in a later post.) Second, the Times owns and operates The Athletic. It’s impossible not to regard the new article as the precursor to the announcement of the results of the review that The Athletic has been conducting since early April.

As of last week, the probe was “still ongoing.” As of June 10, the investigation was still “a few weeks away” from its conclusion.

Two weeks since the final answer was “a few weeks away,” it’s possible (if not probable) that the Times decided to get ahead of the looming announcement by The Athletic regarding the investigation by doing something that neither the Times nor The Athletic had done regarding the biggest NFL story of the offseason: engage in journalism about it.

While there are several specific takeaways from the new article published by the Times, the big-picture assessment is that The Athletic is getting very close to issuing the results of its investigation.

And the article in the Times is essentially the appetizer.