Flag Football Classic: Team USA rolls through NFL competition in Olympic-style round-robin tournament

Saturday’s Fanatics Flag Football Classic tournament at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles posed an intriguing question. Could a team of current and former NFL players defeat a USA aquad familiar with flag football, one that’s won the last five flag football world championships and figures to make up most of an Olympic roster for the 2028 Summer Games?

To put it succinctly, no. Despite facing legends like Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski and Luke Kuechly, along with Pro Bowl talent including Joe Burrow, Saquon Barkley and Jayden Daniels, Team USA showed how valuable experience with the rules and strategy of flag football is in winning three games to win the championship of the round-robin tournament.

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As USA flag football star Darrell “Housh” Doucette was heard saying on a live mic — and has said in the past when the possibility of NFL players trying out for an Olympic team was first suggested — “those guys don’t know this game like we do.” The results backed him up.

Here is how the four games of the Flag Football Classic played out, with Team USA showing who rules the sport.

Rules to know…

15-minute running clock (until the final minute of the half)
QB has seven seconds to get rid of the ball
Each team starts at the 5-yard line
You get four downs to get past midfield (25-yard line). If you do that, you get four more downs to try and score a TD
There are two PAT options: You can go for a 1-point conversion from the 5-yard line or for a 2-point conversion from the 10-yard line
Oh, and the football is a smaller size than the one you see on Sundays

Game 1: Team USA 39, Wildcats FFC 14

Wildcats FFC featured Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow and Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels, both Heisman Trophy winners at LSU. In flag, playing with two quarterbacks is customary, as players are allowed unlimited laterals and backward passes to teammates, who can then throw a forward pass.

Burrow and Daniels quickly tried their hand at that strategy. It didn’t work.

Daniels tossed the ball to Burrow, who then fired a pass across the field back to Daniels, except it didn’t reach the 2024 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year. Team USA’s Isaiah Calhoun read Burrow like a book, picked him off and returned the interception for six.

Suddenly, a flag football team stacked with current and former NFL stars — and led by San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan and Tennessee Titans head coach Robert Saleh — was down 12-0.

That was a sign of things to come for a Wildcats squad that was slow to catch up to the rules of a game Team USA has clearly mastered.

The Wildcats scored only two touchdowns, one on a 50-50 deep ball from Burrow to five-time Pro Bowl wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins and one on a Burrow pass to Odell Beckham Jr. Beckham, a three-time Pro Bowler himself, then turned back the clock to make a one-handed 2-point conversion reception that jogged everyone’s memory of his ladder-climbing, internet-breaking catch for the New York Giants on “Sunday Night Football” in 2014.

But yards after the catch were hard to come by for the Wildcats, and they struggled to pull Team USA’s flags on the other side of the ball. A defense that included influencers Logan Paul and IShowSpeed — but also Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker Luke Kuechly and eight-time Pro Bowl defensive back Jalen Ramsey — was sliced and diced by Team USA, which leaned on Nico Casares and Housh Doucette at quarterback.

Kuechly was called for an illegal rush at one point, and that penalty negated a Ramsey interception. The Wildcats’ defense was later embarrassed by a Shawn Theard Jr. double move that resulted in a touchdown. That put Team USA up 25-6. The OBJ touchdown and 2-point conversion gave the Wildcats some hope — that was, until Team USA tacked on two more touchdowns.

Game 2: Team USA 43, Founders FFC 16

Tom Brady took the field in the second game of the round-robin tournament. He made an immediate impact for Founders FFC, who were piloted by Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton and also received defensive assistance from Saleh. On his first drive, Brady sidestepped the rush and fired a seed to the back-right corner of the end zone, where four-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Stefon Diggs reeled in a scoring grab. Brady followed that up by connecting with former New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers teammate Rob Gronkowski for a 2-point conversion.

Gronkowski, though, said he pulled his hamstring while slipping on his way up from the conversion, which saw him toe tap to secure the catch and then stumble out of bounds before rolling onto the ground.

Although that sequence staked the Founders to an 8-0 advantage, they proceeded to give up 43 straight points. Despite playing its second game in a row, Team USA simply looked faster. Playing with twitch and strategy, the athletic bunch thrived on gadget plays and used angles in space to dodge defenders.

That was once again on display during the final play of the first half. Pablo Smith, another capable thrower on Team USA, took the snap and pitched it back to Doucette, who returned the favor for a good ol’ give-and-go. Smith wound up with the ball once more, that time scoring to push his team ahead 24-8 by intermission.

That lead quickly ballooned in the second half, in part because Aamir Brown authored the second pick 6 of the day. He intercepted a pass from Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts and had reservations for six.

The only other touchdown the Founders scored was off a play they called “Philly Special,” ironically considering Brady was quarterbacking it. It involved Brady throwing to Hurts, who wheeled around for a touchdown. Hurts found Eagles teammate DeVonta Smith for a 2-point conversion, but that score was merely cosmetic.

Game 3: Wildcats FFC 34, Founders FFC 26

After some time in the lab, the Wildcats came out in Game 3 with a bit more flag flavor. They got creative against the Founders with their formations, particularly when moving Burrow and Daniels around, and it brought some juice to the Shanahan-coached offense.

Daniels flashed his dual-threat ability with a run for a 2-point conversion after Eagles star running back Saquon Barkley scored a go-ahead touchdown to make it a 14-6 game.

The Founders answered with an improbable but familiar hookup between Hurts and DeVonta Smith. Facing a fourth down, Hurts hurled a pass to the end zone. It hit off the hands of Diggs, then the right mitt of a defending Adams and ultimately ended up with Smith for six.

A failed conversion attempt kept the Wildcats in front, however. They took a 20-12 lead into the half after Burrow handed the ball off to Daniels, who flung a touchdown pass to OBJ. In the second half, touchdowns from Adams and Barkley — the latter of which was set up by a Kuechly tip-drill interception — helped put the Wildcats in the driver’s seat 34-18.

Hurts raced to the end zone and then linked up with Smith again for a toe-drag 2-point conversion that pulled the Founders within one score, but they didn’t have enough time to knot things up, meaning the Wildcats advanced to the championship versus Team USA.

Championship: Team USA 24, Wildcats FFC 14

The Wildcats got the ball to begin the game after losing the opening coin toss. Coach Kyle Shanahan told his players that he wanted them to work the clock and try to prevent Team USA’s offense from getting more possessions.

After not getting a first down on their first three plays, Joe Burrow took a lateral from Jayden Daniels and hit Davante Adams with a deep throw down the left sideline for a touchdown and 6-0 lead. But on the extra-point try, Burrow’s throw for DeAndre Hopkins was intercepted in the end zone.

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