Patriots deny using "crisis communications expert" for Mike Vrabel-Dianna Russini situation

The Patriots surely would like the Mike Vrabel-Dianna Russini situation to go away. It won't for as long as they keep voluntarily talking about it.

Most recently, the team told Michael McCarthy and Dennis Young of Front Office Sports that it did not retain a crisis communications expert in connection with the controversy.

The question emerged when InTouch reported (and Yahoo! Sports amplified) that the Patriots tried to kill the original New York Post publication of photos from an adults-only Arizona resort with a "notorious crisis strategist" handling the effort.

“Neither Robert Kraft nor the New England Patriots have hired any external ‘crisis communications experts,’” Patriots V.P. of communications Stacey James told Front Office Sports. Per the report, James didn't directly answer the question of whether pressure was applied to the Post. He repeatedly said that owner Robert Kraft "does not employ any external 'crisis strategists' and that the Patriots are not working with 'any external P.R. strategists.'"

It's possible that an effort to block the story was made without a crisis strategist, and that the wires were crossed as to the details — especially since Ben Strauss of ESPN reported that Russini promptly retained a “crisis communications expert" after she was contacted by the Post.

If the Patriots didn't use a crisis communications expert, perhaps they should have. The initial response, with all parties issuing clear and strident denials, was inadequate. As evidenced by Vrabel's statement from Tuesday.

And while the strategy employed on Tuesday gave Vrabel a chance to address the situation under the most favorable conditions possible, feathers were ruffled by the "sneak attack" the team employed when making Vrabel available without prior notice, and when the team restricted the questions that could be posed to Vrabel after he delivered his remarks.

At this point, the best outcome for the Patriots would be for the story to go away. After 15 days, it hasn't. In the current non-stop NFL news cycle, that's a lifetime, and then some.