00:00it's ben valin national nfl writer for the boston globe hey ben what's up guys how we doing today
00:06hey ben have you ever been to dewey beach yeah a lot i mean i grew up in uh in
00:13maryland so i used
00:14to go to rehoboth and ocean city and doing that whole area as a kid so yeah i love it
00:18there yeah
00:19where'd you grow up we didn't know that uh i'm from uh potomac um yeah you guys don't when when
00:26you guys were just starting out in the 90s like i was a teenager in high school and i used
00:29to
00:29listen to you guys and i went to one of your like one of your appearances one day and i
00:34somewhere in my like collection somewhere i have a signed sports junkies like photo of you guys oh
00:40my god we had no idea we just thought you were from the north high school did you go to
00:43ben
00:45uh churchill high school class of 2000 all right very cool cool very cool didn't know that all right
00:50well um now you're a pat uh a patriots guy and uh we've been you know obviously the big story
00:56is
00:56vrabel and uh russini won't go away won't go away mr bickle across the table from me is upset he
01:01did
01:01he wants it to go away well i mean it's just it's enough already what's it like up there how's
01:07what's
01:07the reception been for for vrabel do people care what's it like i mean it's like watching a car
01:14wreck at this point you can't help but turn and look and you know every new batch of photos that's
01:21coming out you know it's just more and more like embarrassing for vrabel you know it's uh it's
01:28it's the story that just won't end and uh you know it's it's this it's kind of this really unique
01:35story because no one here is quite sure how to handle it is it football is it not football i
01:42mean
01:42it clearly crossed the lines when he had to miss the third day of the nfl draft and that whole
01:48thing
01:48was weird like why did you have to miss that day for what he called counseling why couldn't that have
01:54been done at any other time in the off season why did he have to fly out to utah for
02:00the weekend where
02:01he and his wife have a home in park city but that whole thing was very awkward um but yeah
02:06i mean
02:06it the the thing about all these the drip drip drip of these new stories and new photos is
02:12yeah i i guess at least for his sake it's all like in the same realm of of like one
02:18story it's
02:19all about his relationship with diana russini it hasn't gone off the rails yet where other women
02:24are chiming in or like a tiger thing right like perkins right it hasn't gone so crazy yet so you
02:32know
02:32he's just gonna have to like withstand this barrage for a while and it just happens to come at a
02:37really
02:38quiet time in the nfl calendar and and there's nothing nothing else to distract us from this
02:43story so he's just gonna have to bite his lip and kind of uh grin and bear it for a
02:48while it puts the
02:48players in an awkward spot right hasn't drake may have been criticized a little bit for some of his
02:53comments about his coach well he did was support him he said he supported him yeah he's got to yeah
02:58i'm sure i'm sure drake is getting criticized because people will find any reason to criticize from the
03:04few comments that i've seen from him it's been very vanilla you know we we love our coach we stand
03:10by
03:10our coach and like at the end of the day this story still is mostly just a personal matter between
03:16him
03:17and his wife and his family like you know diana russini is the one who violated the you know a
03:23core
03:24tenant of her job you know with with her journalism ethics mike rabel you know as far as we know
03:30all he
03:30really did is is cheat on his wife which is more of a personal matter it doesn't really affect
03:34football now if it starts to affect his leadership if he you know told robert craft some screwy things
03:41and it comes back to bite him like you know then then it's a different story but right now i
03:45still think
03:45you know it's it's it's more of a personal matter for him and uh uh so yeah it's it's a
03:52mess right now
03:53but uh you know it's it's a good lesson for him what's amazing to me is is just like how
03:59brazen he
04:00and diana were about the whole thing like you know there's pictures of them in the casino at the hotel
04:06like renting a boat um you know at a bar like they were just so like public with everything and
04:12mike
04:12rabel has to be one of the most identifiable men in in the country a six foot four you know
04:18massive
04:19human being who was a super bowl winner and now he's coaching you know coach of the year and in
04:24super bowls like he didn't like put on a fake mustache or something dude like he was just they
04:29were just so brazen about the whole thing yeah and that that's probably to me that's probably the
04:33biggest takeaway is how just sloppy and arrogant they were about yeah they didn't care right so ben here
04:37in washington we spent a little portion of the show wondering if washington should go after stefan
04:43diggs after he was cleared of in this latest trial and i'm wondering what your experience was
04:48with stefan uh he he had 85 catches last year over a thousand yards with the patriots um he's bounced
04:57around kind of from team to team here the last couple of years what's he been like what was he
05:02like was he liked as a teammate give us uh the skinny on stefan diggs yeah i give any team
05:08an enthusiastic
05:09thumbs up to go get stefan diggs i think the patriots may have made a mistake by cutting him loose
05:15and
05:15i don't think they've completely closed the door on it if for some reason the aj brown trade gets
05:20screwy i i don't think the patriots would mind you know pivoting back to stefan diggs i just don't
05:27think they ultimately wanted to pay him you know 22 million dollars this year or whatever it was i think
05:32it was mostly financial but um you know it started off a little wacky last year he had that video
05:38in
05:38miami with the pink bag of whatever um and he wasn't at otas at the time so uh once that
05:45happened
05:45like you know he was a he was an angel the rest of the season and and i know he
05:50had this latest legal
05:51incident but he was it wasn't just the charges were dismissed he was found not guilty so i don't even
05:56consider that like an off-field issue anymore um and yeah he was he it was his first you know
06:02he was a
06:02it was his first year coming back from acl he didn't have to start the season on pup he was
06:07ready
06:08to go first day of training camp he's their hardest worker certainly in in the wide receiver room he was
06:13a really good mentor for a lot of the younger guys case on booty um pop douglas uh he was
06:19productive he
06:20had 85 catches over a thousand yards he wasn't dominant but he was a good player and uh and now
06:26he's
06:26going to be second year removed from acl i thought he you know he was learning a new offense last
06:31year he
06:32came in and and produced right away so i i thought you know he would have been better in his
06:37second
06:37year with the patriots and i think that uh whichever team signs him is is mostly going to be like
06:42pretty
06:43happy with stefan digg he's a hard worker trains his butt off he comes in in great shape and even
06:49though he's 32 like he's now two years removed from acl he's been productive so i think he'd be a
06:54really good addition for the commanders for the ravens for any team that needs a veteran receiver beyond the
06:59the the offseason the pink stuff or whatever was he ever considered a distraction
07:06no not after that that was you know a distraction and that happened in may right that's the time to
07:12do it i guess which mike rabel is learning right now um but no i mean he really wasn't i
07:18mean i
07:18guess a little bit towards the end of the season when him and christian barmore both had legal issues
07:24at the same time but um you know the nfl let diggs play and and after like the initial day
07:30or two of
07:31like the initial shock of the the story kind of wore off there wasn't even that much protest about diggs
07:36still playing while his legal issue you know wound its way through the courts and and then like i said
07:42he was found not guilty so right um you know so like he was a good leader and you know
07:47did like in
07:48buffalo he was a guy who uh rarely did media and he skipped out on that stuff he did a
07:53lot more of it
07:54for us he wasn't like perfect attendance but he did a good amount of media was pretty accountable
07:58talked after games um and and the guys all liked him the guys in the locker room all seemed to
08:04like
08:04stefan diggs he was one of their emotional leaders they adopted one of his slogans last year
08:09we all we got we all we need like that was all stefan diggs um so the guys in the
08:14locker room really
08:14liked him he was one of their leaders and it was a leadership that helped them get to the
08:18super bowl um so you know i was i was i thought it would have been you know not the
08:24worst idea to
08:25bring stefan diggs back right and uh um you know the patriots like they're looking at they already
08:31added romeo dobbs and they're probably going to add aj brown but they subtracted stefan diggs and
08:36there's talk that case on booty might be on the way out too so like that to me doesn't seem
08:40like a lot
08:41of progress if you're adding brown and dobbs but you're subtracting diggs and booty and so i think
08:46stefan diggs is a good player and i think the commanders if they're looking to win now i think
08:51he'll be a good weapon for jaden daniels ben we got to run always great catching up with you that's
08:57ben valin from the boston globe thanks pal thanks bud see you man thanks a lot guys interesting so he
09:04is not down on diggs no i didn't hear anything about distraction obviously that pink stuff that can be a
09:10distraction hopefully you don't have any more of that stuff in the offseason come to light but uh
09:16on the field the guy produces well he didn't get to it in the sports page but there's one guy
09:21they
09:21can't go after anymore when we've talked about the wide receivers they could add and that's juan
09:25jennings he signed a 13 million dollar deal i don't think they care they didn't seem particularly
09:29interested one year diggs is still out there debo still out there of course brandon iuke still out
09:34there we're gonna have ben stanig on and i think a lot of people still and ben's one of them
09:38thinks ultimately they're just waiting on ben or on uh iuke yep ben'll join us coming up at 8 45
09:45here on the junkies don't go anywhere
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