Throwing The Flag on The NFL's Olympic Dreams

NFL players, not to mention flag football, should not be in the Olympic Games

Flag football will be contested at the 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles. While maybe not quite as ridiculous as breakdancing at the Paris Games, it’s silly just the same. NFL owners greenlighting its players to participate takes the concept from dumb to dumber.

For starters, outside of the Browns’ Kevin Stefanski, who might like a break from the Shedeur Sanders circus for a bit, what coach in his right mind would sign off on any marquee player (and I assume that’s who the owners want to showcase), risking injury or missing training camp for a side show?

Of course, that’s not how commissioner Roger Goodell sees it. “It’s an incredible honor for any athlete to represent their country in the Olympics, which is the pinnacle of global sports,” he said earlier this week. Sure, that’s true for sports like track and field, gymnastics and swimming. But it’s not true for a game whose pinnacle is the intramural championship at the local community college.

NFL players already represent their country in the pinnacle of sports. 127.7 million people watched the Eagles and the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. 31.3 million watched the 2024 Summer Olympics. We’ll get far more choked up watching Patrick Mahomes hoist the Lombardi trophy then we will seeing a gold medal draped around his neck for winning a game best suited for P.E. class.

Goodell is also of the mind that playing in the Olympics will further increase interest in the NFL internationally. Umm. You know what will help grow the game of football? Playing actual football. Which last time I looked is exactly what the league is attempting to do by going to England, Brazil, Ireland, and Germany.

If all it takes is a few nylon belts, and a bit of Velcro and some PVC flags, why not save teams the hassle of all that travel, and just round up a bunch of locals to chase each other around for an hour and call it good? Then again, Goodell might be on to something. If I spent an hour watching glorified tag with a ball, I’d be desperate to watch football, or just about anything else for that matter.

Like the saying goes, just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Flag football at the Summer Games is a gimmick. The NFL’s plan makes it even more gimmicky. I say throw the flag on the whole harebrained idea before players are needlessly exposed to injuries and the athletic integrity that both the league and the Olympics are supposed to represent is compromised.