Many NFL players have expressed interest in competing in flag football in the 2028 Summer Olympics, but they won’t just be handed roster spots on Team USA.
Experienced flag football players will get an opportunity to show that their knowledge of the flag game makes them better-suited to win gold in Los Angeles than the NFL players who are superior athletes but haven’t played flag football before. Callie Brownson, USA Football’s senior director of high performance and national team operations, told the Los Angeles Times that her organization’s mission is to pick the players who give Team USA the best chance of winning a gold medal, not the players who have the biggest names.
“The cool thing about our process is when you come out to trials, there is no name on the back of your jersey,” Brownson said. “You get a number and you have the same opportunity to try out as the person next to you. . . . We’ll just be excited to have the best team that we could but I always do and will always stand up for who we currently field. They’re the best flag football players in the world, both men and women, and they deserve their flowers, too.”
Mike Daniels, a former cornerback at West Virginia who is now a Team USA flag football player, acknowledges that the NFL has better athletes than flag football players but wants those NFL athletes to understand that flag is a different game with different strategies and tactics that they need to be prepared for.
“The athletic ability [of an NFL player], I’m not questioning,” Daniels said. “But the IQ aspect, the speed of the game is completely different.”
An NFL player who takes the time to learn the subtleties of the flag game and trains to play flag football at the highest level could probably use his superior athletic ability to out-play the players who currently represent Team USA in international flag football competitions. And because having active NFL players in the Olympics would serve as such a big publicity boost for flag football, it’s hard to imagine that USA Football won’t choose some NFL players for the Olympic team.
But any NFL player who thinks he can just waltz onto the field for the Olympic trials and instantly be better than the players who have spent years playing flag football may be disappointed when the members of Team USA are announced.
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