Will—and Can—NFL Stars Play Olympic Flag Football?

The NFL regular season doesn’t start for more than two weeks, and the Olympics are over, but the potential marriage of the two sporting giants keeps generating widespread interest.

U.S. men’s flag national team quarterback Darrell Doucette made headlines over the weekend for his resistance to NFL players joining Team USA’s flag football squad for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. “I think it’s disrespectful that they just automatically assume that they’re able to just join the Olympic team,” Doucette told The Guardian.

Doucette, 35, will lead the 12-man U.S. roster into the 2024 International Federation of American Football (IFAF) Flag Football World Championships, which begins Aug. 27 in Finland. But it was Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts who starred in an ad during the Paris Olympics touting the addition of flag football to the Games in 2028. Fellow star QBs Joe Burrow (Bengals) and Caleb Williams (Bears) have also made their potential Olympic interest known. So have Dolphins wideout Tyreek Hill and Cowboys pass rusher Micah Parsons, among other current and former NFL players.

A Lot on the Table

Despite the hype surrounding Olympic flag football, many details still need to be ironed out over the next four years. How many nations will compete in Los Angeles, and how they will qualify, have not been determined. Neither has the roster selection process for Team USA.

“We’re going to be very open-minded about anyone and everyone meeting the criteria that we set.” USA Football CEO Scott Hallenbeck told USA Today in December. “We’re going for the gold, and we will do what’s necessary to put the best team together.” No specific timetable for the Olympic process has been revealed.

Finding a Middle Ground

If active NFL players want to compete in the 2028 Olympics, and have the green light from team owners, it would seem to be a huge miss for USA Football, the IFAF, or the International Olympic Committee to not allow them to. Perhaps rosters could have a limit on how many NFL players are allowed, in order to still include full-time flag football players.