Dianna Russini has endured some disturbing harassment ever since New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers critiqued one of her recent reports, the NFL insider revealed.
Russini and her colleagues at The Athletic, Zack Rosenblatt and Jeff Howe, reported on Monday that Jets QB Zach Wilson has been “hesitant to” return to the starting position because of injury risk concerns.
In his weekly appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show”, Rodgers (no stranger to stirring it up with NFL reporters and insiders) criticized Russini’s report and accused her of trying to assassinate Wilson’s character.
During her appearance on “The Dan Le Batard Show” (h/t Ben Axelrod of The Athletic), Russini revealed that she’s received some awful comments from fans since Rodgers’ criticism, both in-person and via social media.
“My week has been trash. It’s horrendous. I live in the New York market so I’m in the vortex of it all. So I get to hear it and also hear from Jets fans when I drop my kids off at daycare. And look, when you’ve been doing this a long time and you’ve become a credible person covering the league, you hope that because of all the past stories you’ve done, you’ve built this trust with the audience and the fans. But I realized over the last few days, it’s not that they don’t believe the report is accurate. They know the report is accurate, the story is just unbelievable. I think that’s where the issue is…
“Unfortunately, it’s just my job to uncover the story and uncover the news. And when the No. 2 overall pick doesn’t want to play or is hesitant or reluctant — whatever word the Jets want us to say or are comfortable with the world knowing about at this point — that’s a story to me.”
Russini added that she received a gruesome death threat from one disgruntled Jets fan, all because she was doing her job as a reporter.
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Regardless of how one feels about a person’s reporting, there’s no excuse to stoop so low and make someone feel uncomfortable. Russini is one of the most reliable and trustworthy reporters in the business. And as she emphasized, she was simply reporting what she heard.
But again, Rodgers is no stranger to calling out big-named reporters if he doesn’t like what they’re saying. He said earlier this offseason that NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport “doesn’t know (expletive) about me” and that ESPN’s Adam Schefter should “lose” his phone number.
It’s been a frustrating year for Jets fans, whose season of promise went down the drain right after Rodgers suffered a season-ending Achilles tear in Week 1. At 4-8, the Jets will have to win out just to have any minor hope of making the postseason.
