Dianna Russini is winning her ESPN exit gamble

Dianna Russini grappled with whether she was ready to assume the responsibility of being the top dog.

Russini, the ebullient NFL reporter, left ESPN for The Athletic, the sports outlet owned by the New York Times, last offseason — and arguably increased her visibility in the process.

On a video call with The Post earlier this week, Steven Ginsberg, The Athletic’s executive editor, revealed his recruiting pitch to Russini.

“My pitch was to come to The Athletic, be our main NFL insider, and then work with our amazing staff around the country,” Ginsberg said, adding that this position would give her the opportunity to “stand out on her own” while teaming up with the site’s team-focused NFL beat writers to deliver impactful stories that pop out as original.

In previous interviews, Russini explained that she had immense gratitude for how much her career developed at ESPN, but she had hit a ceiling where it didn’t seem like her role would immediately expand.

Speaking to The Post this week, Russini, 41, looked back on when she was weighing whether to take the job and remembered gauging the pressure of performing as the outlet’s top reporter covering by far the country’s biggest sports league.

“I wasn’t so concerned about my name or my credibility as a journalist. I think my biggest concern and fear at the time was doing the job at the level that I knew The Athletic wanted it to be done at — to be the top senior NFL insider … [whereas] at ESPN, Adam Schefter was and is king,” Russini said.

“The hardest part about making the jump was being comfortable with being uncomfortable for a bit. It took about two or three months, but when I realized that the job was doing what I was actually already doing — communicating, building relationships, writing, sharing, and covering the NFL — then all the nerves went away and I got all my confidence back.”

She was also concerned about giving up the TV medium, which is particularly powerful at ESPN, a network that by default is on in bars, restaurants, gyms and airports across America.

Nevertheless, she has kept up her TV and digital video exposure, appearing on shows hosted by fellow ESPN ex-pats Colin Cowherd, Rich Eisen, Dan Patrick and Dan Le Batard, plus continuing as a years-long recurring guest on Barstool’s “Pardon My Take” podcast.

These shows offer wide exposure for Russini as their highlights get clipped on digital media and spread all over the internet.

They also require a lot less of the “hurry up and wait” element of being an ESPN TV talent, perpetually on-call for shows like “Get Up”, “SportsCenter” and “NFL Live” throughout the day.

Consequently, the job switch has also paid off in terms of the level of storytelling that Russini is executing in her reporting.

ESPN is a multi-billion dollar rights partner of the NFL.

Though it’s not that ESPN never publishes stories that make NFL owners feel uncomfortable — Patriots reporting from Seth Wickersham and Don Van Natta Jr. over the years is a prominent example — that wasn’t the purview of Russini’s role as a field reporter.

At The Athletic, she has been more aggressive and taken advantage of the collegial framework at the outlet, working with the site’s cadre of team beat writers.

One example came after the Panthers fired Frank Reich, the second consecutive year the head coach had been dismissed midseason following Matt Rhule’s termination in 2022.

Working with Panthers beat writer Joseph Person, Russini described a “Hunger Games” culture with the team in which other coaches were going over Reich’s head to communicate directly with Panthers owner David Tepper.

“We dug deeper than just the obvious stories,” Russini said.

“Owners and their communications people were really mad [at me last season]. I’ve had a lot of really hard conversations with these teams, whether that’s over a lunch, phone, text message or email.

“But something I’ve learned is that people are going to get upset in the moment because they didn’t want the information out. But somewhere underneath it all, and you don’t feel it in the moment, there’s respect given.

“And I have found that teams that have always been so bothered by the coverage when you’re able to really pull back the layers, those are the ones that wind up giving you access later on because they know you’re good at what you do. You become a trusted source on that team — people know you know.”

This past week, the outlet launched Russini’s new podcast, “Scoop City,” which is co-hosted by former NFL quarterback Chase Daniel.

They are quickly building an arsenal of A-list guests, as they have Cowboys COO and co-owner Stephen Jones on Friday, with appearances from Eagles running back Saquon Barkley and Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins slated for next week.

Amid this career jump, Russini and her husband, Kevin Goldschmidt, have two young sons — 1-year-old Joey and 2-year-old Michael.

Around the trade deadline last season, Russini had been texting with an NFL GM at about 6 am, the best time to reach coaches and front office personnel who start their days in the early hours.

When she picked her phone back up after a few minutes she saw an alarming message from him: “Are you OK?”

She quickly came to realize that her 2-year-old son Michael had requested $50 from the unnamed GM on Apple Pay.

“The GM thought I was being held hostage or something,” Russini said with a laugh, noting that the men in football have been remarkably supportive of her since she became a mother, understanding situations where a toddler was having a meltdown in the background of a call.

“I don’t know how Michael was able to do it but he was watching ‘Peppa Pig’ or ‘Bluey’ on my phone and it happened.”

There have been too many times to count where a big story is breaking while Russini is changing a diaper or giving kids a bath or putting them in car seats.

There are tight windows when a story is breaking or an elusive source finally calls back, and reporters across beats in and out of sports must field those communications even if they come at inconvenient times.

Russini credits her husband with keeping the train on the tracks.

“Kevin supports what I do and understands the NFL at a level that I would argue he should be in football,” she said.

“I don’t know if I could do this with someone that didn’t understand the landscape, because he understands the trade deadline. He sees all the contacts in my phone. He gets why I have to take a call from an NFL owner.”