USA Football officials “salivate” over potential pool of 2028 flag football players
ProFootball Talk on NBC Sports
As the countdown to 2028 begins, the debate has started regarding the best football players to represent the United States in the debut of Olympic flag football.
However it plays out, the folks in charge of the U.S. men’s flag football team will be happy.
“You can’t help but salivate with the athleticism that could . . . be in the [player] pool,” Eric Mayes, USA Football managing director of high performance and national teams, told Ramon Antonio Vargas of TheGuardian.com.
The fact that more than a few NFL players believe they can waltz their way to a gold medal has rankled established flag players, like Darrell “Housh” Doucette. He sparked the conversation by saying it’s “disrespectful” for NFL players to think they can show up and take spots. Doucette doubled down by saying he’d be a better choice for the Olympic flag team than Patrick Mahomes.
Yes, flag football is a different game. But it’s obvious from watching highlights of current flag football players that they aren’t the same caliber of athlete that the NFL enjoys. Mahomes and other elite quarterbacks throw like magicians. Doucette throws more like Brucie from The Longest Yard.
“One of the questions that’s been raised, which I think is more than fair and appropriate, is how much time do you need to try to teach, ” said Scott Hallenbeck, the CEO of USA Football. “We don’t have the answer to that just yet.”
The related question is how much teaching will really be needed for some of the best overall athletes in the world?
One big issue will be versatility, due to roster size (maximum of 15 for 5-versus-5 flag football). Receivers or quarterbacks might need to play defensive back. One player centers the ball (Ezekiel Elliott isn’t interested in that) and runs a route. One player lines up seven yards from the snap and chases the quarterback.
Still, NFL players bring a far higher level of overall skill and ability than flag football currently possesses. (Indeed, if the flag football players were good enough to play in the NFL, most would be.)
Regardless of whether current flag football players can hang with NFL players, the sheer number of NFL players that will be interested in playing Olympic flag football and the limited number of spots will make for an intriguing selection process.
On one hand, Hallenback tried to downplay the observations about the quality of the competition for the U.S. men’s flag football team in 2028 as hypothesizing. On the other hand, he called the process of picking the roster “possibly the greatest trials programs in the history of trials programs.”
That last part will make NFL owners even more nervous. If/when they loan players to flag football, it’s one thing for the competition to entail injury risk. If the qualification process entails a series of actual games and competitions, they might be even more leery about voting to approve the desire of players to moonlight for a medal.
