A Team USA Flag Football player has called out NFL players for assuming that they would be included in the team that will compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, claiming that their assumptions are disrespectful to current flag football players.
The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will be the first Olympic games to feature flag football as an event. Various NFL players could be candidates to compete on the team; however, one current Team USA flag football player is unsure whether they should be on the team.
Darrell “Housh” Doucette, who gets his nickname due to his resemblance to former NFL player TJ Houshmandzadeh, said that NFL players should not be automatically considered for spots on the 2028 Olympic team.
Doucette said the current team is “already great,” and the NFL players should “still have to go out there and compete” to earn a spot on the team.
“I think it’s disrespectful that they just automatically assume that they’re able to just join the Olympic team because of the person that they are — they didn’t help grow this game to get to the Olympics,” he said, as reported by The Guardian.
“Give the guys who helped this game get to where it’s at their respect.”
These comments come in response to multiple NFL players expressing their excitement about potentially competing in the Olympics, with Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts starring in a hype video about the future team.
This video features Hurts lighting fire to a football and then throwing it over the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where it lands on top of an oversized torch to ignite the Olympic flame.
The hype video ends with Hurts staring into the camera and proclaiming: “It’s our turn.”
Kansas Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said he would “definitely want to” play flag football in the 2028 Olympics if he is healthy enough in four years.
“NFL football, American football, has taken to further parts, all the way across the world, with flag football coming to the Olympics. I think it’s really cool because football is a great game that has given me so much and I want to make sure everyone gets the same experience that I got growing up,” he explained, according to The Olympics.
Despite Doucette claiming that NFL players are not guaranteed to be the ones playing in the Olympics, NFL executive vice president Jeff Miller said the league is already working to find ways to include the players in the games.
“The amount of enthusiasm that we’ve seen among our players or more broadly for flag football in ’28 . . . has been remarkable,” he said, per Bleacher Report.
“Conversations are continuing to go on with the [NFL] Players Association, with players themselves … but obviously the hope would be that players who want to participate in the Olympics and represent their country have that opportunity to do so. … It is something that we’re working on actively.”
The good news for the league and the players is that there are still four years before the next Olympics, meaning the sides will have a long time before any official decisions must be made about who will participate on the team.
