Team USA figures to thrive when flag football makes its Olympic debut as an event at the 2028 Los Angeles Games. One of the biggest questions comes in who will make up the roster? While the NFL voted last summer to approve its players to participate in Olympic competition, Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton said he would be surprised if any actually make the cut.
Two years out from the Los Angeles Olympics, the national team roster consists of professional flag football players, many of whom are numerous years removed from playing tackle football. That squad went head-to-head at the Fanatics Flag Football Classic earlier this month against two rosters built mostly of NFL players.
Team USA demolished its way to a championship, and Payton saw it up close and personal as one of the coaches involved in the tournament.
“That was humbling,” Payton said Tuesday at the NFL’s annual league meeting. “You remember the ‘Home Alone’ series? Macaulay Culkin was the international team. I felt like coach (John) Harbaugh and I were the two guys outside getting hit in the head with the iron and tripping over the garden hose. It’s an entirely different game.”
For all of their strengths as professional football players, NFL stars simply lack experience playing a sport in flag football that has its own very distinct nuances. They struggled at the Fanatics Flag Football Classic to stop Team USA’s athletes, who are skilled at protecting their flags and havea stronger comfort level with the rules.
There is still time for players like Joe Burrow — who accounted for a few highlights in this month’s event and stated his desire to compete for a gold medal — to pick up the necessary experience to play on the Olympic stage. How many, if any, bridge the clear gap between themselves and Team USA’s stars remains to be seen. And Payton has a tepid outlook in that regard.
“I think when this first was announced there was this feeling there would be 10 NFL players on that roster, and I’ll be surprised if there’s one,” Payton said. “I think we have plenty of players that can acclimate, but it’s going to take a month or two. And then if you’re one of those players, do you have that month or two? If you’re training for that, you’re not training [for the NFL].”
There were 22 current and former NFL players on the Founders FFC and Wildcats FFC rosters. Not all of them stated their interest in playing in the Olympics. That includes Tom Brady, who will be 50 two summers from now and said he is “unlikely” to represent the United States.
There is, however, one former NFL quarterback who could make the Team USA roster as soon as this year. Robert Griffin III was one of 24 players invited to camp and will compete for a spot on the 12-man squad that will head to the world championship in August.
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