New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel skipped Day 3 of the 2026 NFL Draft to seek counseling amid the Dianna Russini controversy. He then went straight to address his locker room instead of going quiet. And old teammates who played alongside Vrabel during New England’s dynasty years believe that choice itself can have a massive impact on the current squad.

Former NFL safety Rodney Harrison and Vrabel shared the Patriots locker room from 2003 to 2008. They saw then-head coach Bill Belichick face the brunt of the Spygate controversy in 2007 and still put up a Super Bowl run. So, when MassLive recently asked Harrison whether the current Patriots players would stand behind Vrabel through the Russini controversy, he didn’t hedge.

“The one saving grace, no matter what goes on in your life, has always been an NFL locker room,” Harrison told MassLive. “Those players are going through some of the same things that’s out there, things they struggle with. So they have a great deal of empathy. So I think they’ll understand, and they’ll forgive Mike. I think it’ll bring the locker room even closer together.”

When Mike Vrabel held a team meeting on the Monday after the Sedona photos broke and started the controversy, player and team sources told Boston Sports Journal they were “very satisfied with the interaction and were ready to move on quickly.” Harrison knows what that locker room looks like when it decides to close ranks, and his read is that it already has, even if there may be some things to fix.

“You still might have a few holes,” Harrison continued. “A few who might be skeptical, ‘Well he said this, he said that’ but the majority in that locker room, they love Mike Vrabel and they respect him. They know he’s a human being, he’s a good person, and he made a mistake. And, they’re going to forgive him.”

Interestingly, Rodney had also seen legendary quarterback Tom Brady’s personal life become very public in 2006. Brady’s relationship with actress Bridget Moynahan had ended, after which she announced she was pregnant with his child, and Brady was already publicly with Gisele Bundchen by that time. The franchise absorbed the media attention and moved on.

And Rodney Harrison isn’t the only one who is thinking along those lines. Former NFL defensive tackle Vince Wilfork was also Vrabel’s teammate during those dynasty years in New England. His position is that Vrabel’s willingness to go straight to the players is the only real play here. And from what Wilfork knows of the man, that’s what Vrabel has done.

“I love Mike,” Wilfork said. “Mike is a great guy, a great coach. He’s been a coach and teammate of mine. I know how he is. I know he told them, ‘I eff’d up.’ He’s going to face it like a man, and hope for the best. He’s going to be real about it.”

The early returns from the current roster also support that view. Alijah Vera-Tucker – who joined the Patriots this offseason – respects how “open and honest” Mike Vrabel has been with the locker room. Meanwhile, at a Best Buddies charity event last week, Drake Maye, the franchise quarterback, also made his position public.

“We’re here for coach, we love coach and what he does for us, and has done for us this past year,” Maye said. “You can’t speak it into words, and thankfully, he’s our head coach. We know he’s dealing with some stuff off the field and out of the coaching world, but we’re here for him, and I know he’s gonna come back.”

That buy-in starts with results: Vrabel’s 2025 AP NFL Coach of the Year award after a 14-3 debut season in New England. And Rodney Harrison sees this current controversy only sharpening that competitive edge further.

“He’s been humbled. But he’s hungry. He’s even hungrier now,” Harrison declared. “He knows he has a lot of stuff to prove to those guys in the locker room. And that’s what he’s going to do.”

Harrison and Wilfork are confident the locker room will hold – and their reasoning is rooted in how they’ve seen this organization respond before. A coach who’s already gone to his players, with his quarterback publicly behind him, is a team that has made a choice. But for Wilfork and former Patriots safety Devin McCourty, that choice only matters if the leaders in the room sustain it – and this franchise has a very specific track record of doing exactly that when the outside world is watching.

The Patriots have been here before, twice

The last two times this franchise had to absorb a public gut punch, Vince Wilfork and Devin McCourty were inside the building. Their instinct, separately, is to go back to that history as a frame for what the current players need to do now.

Spygate broke in 2007 after the NFL found the Patriots had videotaped opposing coaches’ defensive signals from an unauthorized sideline location. Bill Belichick was fined $500,000 – the league maximum – and the franchise was docked a first-round draft pick. The Patriots went 18-0 (including the postseason) before losing Super Bowl XLII to the New York Giants.

Then there was Deflategate. In the 2014 AFC Championship game, Tom Brady was accused of deflating the football to get an edge over the Indianapolis Colts. Brady served a four-game suspension to open the 2016 season, the franchise incurred a $1 million fine, and lost two 2016 draft picks. The Patriots still won Super Bowl LI against the Atlanta Falcons. Both times, the outside pressure had become an internal fuel. Wilfork was in those rooms. He knows what that felt like and what it produced.

“After Spygate, we were on a mission as a team,” Wilfork noted. “I remember at that time, where we said in the locker room, where we said in the meetings, ‘Eff everybody!’ We were on a mission to show everybody we were the real deal. We knew the best way we could have our coaches back was to go out and do what we did. So this is prime opportunity for the players to step up and say (to Vrabel) we have your back. You’re going through a tough path, you’re going through a tough time, but guess what, we got your back. We’re going to show up for you.”

Now, the Spygate and Deflategate comparisons are real history, but they only carry so far. Both were institutional controversies – the league issued rulings, there were defined timelines, and eventually a finish line. But what Mike Vrabel is navigating is personal and has no equivalent endpoint. That distinction is what McCourty turns to now.

“I just think they’re going to have to deal with it in waves,” McCourty said. “It’s not going to be, ‘Hey man, we’re finally over this.’ There are going to be different waves, and how they handle it will really determine their season.”

McCourty’s specific concern is Drake Maye. As the starting quarterback, Maye carries the locker room’s tone whether he chooses that role or not. McCourty watched Brady and Wilfork carry that weight through Spygate and Deflategate. But Maye is only entering his third NFL season. The public support he showed at the Best Buddies event is a start. Sustaining it across a full year of ‘waves’ is something else entirely.

“I think for Drake Maye, I feel bad in a sense,” McCourty said. “He’s still navigating how to be in this league, and guys are going to look to him. He’s the quarterback. He’s married, he’s mature. That’s a lot to take on when you’re not at that stage of life.”

Wilfork, meanwhile, sees an opening, not just a test. A team rallying for a coach under fire is different than a team playing for a coach on solid ground – and Wilfork has been on both ends of that.

“This could build a team morale, and this could start something going forward from the football side, to get things going back in the right direction,” Wilfork said. “This could be a huge turning point on the football side. It’s going to be interesting to see if the leaders step up.”

Harrison, Wilfork, and McCourty all believe the locker room holds – but McCourty’s version has a condition. It holds if the right people step up at the right moments. In 2007, that was Brady and Wilfork. In 2026, it falls on Maye, and no one yet knows what that looks like when the pressure is real.