Journalist Fired After Dianna Russini Controversy Claims Many ‘Female Reporters’ Slept With ‘NFL Staff’

Over a month after she was fired from her freelance position at USA Today, sports journalist Crissy Froyd has spoken out about her termination and claimed that she knew of reporters sleeping with NFL coaches and staff.

“I’ve also been told by at least half a dozen female reporters that they have had sex with NFL staff and, in one case, a prominent NFL head coach, while they were covering the team,” Froyd wrote in an essay for the Daily Mail published on Monday, June 1.

She added that “gossip about these illicit reporter-NFL employee relationships is even more prominent” and claimed that those stories “involved some of the most prominent female sports reporters and NFL coaches in the country.”

Froyd even claimed that she had been propositioned by some men in the NFL.

“This climate breeds a culture of corruption,” Froyd concluded at the end of her essay. “If female reporters don’t play by the rules of this male-dominated game, they are at a disadvantage. And if media organizations that cover the NFL refuse to recognize this while the reporters who cover the league are too intimated to investigate it, the culture will continue.”

As Globe previously reported, photos of Dianna Russini and Mike Vrabel were published by Page Six that showed the two of them holding hands and dancing at a resort in Arizona. They both initially denied that they had an inappropriate relationship, but Russini, 43, later resigned from her position at The Athletic.

“I do so not because I accept the narrative that has been constructed around this episode, but because I refuse to lend it further oxygen or to let it define me or my career,” she wrote in a since-deleted message on X at the time.

However, shortly after Russini announced her decision to leave, Froyd posted her own thoughts on the situation.

“I’m sure you were told to submit this or that you’d get fired instead,” Froyd wrote via X while retweeting Russini’s resignation message. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. We know who you really are and what you’ve been up to for years. It does so much detriment to women in sports who have done things the right way.”

Two days later, USA Today announced it had terminated Froyd’s contract.

“USA TODAY Sports has ended its contractor relationship with Crissy Froyd effective immediately,” the outlet said in a message shared on social media. “Her recent statements do not reflect our commitment to professionalism or uphold our principles of ethical conduct.”

Froyd has spoken about her firing multiple times on social media and has maintained her claims that her tweet about Russini is what led to her termination.