There have been a lot of big topics at this year’s NFL Spring League Meetings. Among them were the approval of an amendment to the onside kick rule, the rejection of a ban on the tush push, and the withdrawal of a proposal for playoff reseeding. Perhaps the most intriguing, however, was the vote on whether NFL players will be allowed to compete for Team USA’s flag football squad at the 2028 Summer Olympics in L.A.
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That vote passed on Tuesday, opening up the floodgates for any NFL player to try out for Team USA’s Men’s Flag Football Team. However, the language of that proposal was very vague.
There were no mentions of the duration or intensity of these tryouts. There were, however, assurances that any flag football schedule would not interfere with a player’s NFL commitments. It’s an exciting development, but NBC’s Mike Florio is not quite on board.
Potential scheduling conflicts could still cause issues. And the vague nature of the approved resolution might also be problematic. However, Florio believes that there is “inherent unfairness” to the whole idea for another reason.
“There’s an inherent unfairness to the idea that all these guys have been toiling for years, focused on flag football, putting their time and their effort into it, and they’re gonna be told take a seat, for the Olympics,” said the PFT journalist.
“Because the guys who don’t play flag football but who are really good at tackle football are just gonna show up, and they’re gonna barnstorm in, they’re gonna take your gold medal, and they’re gonna go,” he added.
Florio and co-host Chris Simms then briefly discussed how, in other sports like hockey and basketball, professionals usually take over for the bigger international tournaments.
Florio still believes the NFL kind of “steamrolled” this resolution through because of its ambitions to grow the game internationally, thereby ignoring other possible considerations or issues that may arise.
“People need to realize—and I’m trying to strike the balance like you are, and I’m trying to be supportive of this, but it’s not real football. And there are issues that have just been steamrolled by the NFL. That’s what they do. Don’t ask the questions, don’t raise the issues, this is what we’ve decided we wanna do, and if you don’t get on board with it, you’re a hater.”
Simms was in agreement with Florio. He also suggested that it’s unlikely that all 32 owners were really on board with the idea.
But it seems like an ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’ type of boys club those NFL owners are running now with renegades like Al Davis gone. Simms also broached the idea that including NFL players could lead to two negative outcomes: embarrassment or injury.
“But I always do worry about the embarrassment. I worry about the injury aspect for the player, for sure. Yeah, it’s not gonna look good if some 5’6″ guy from Japan goes up and steals the ball from Justin Jefferson to win the flag football championship, gold medal or whatever.”
Chris Simms did acknowledge, however, that this is a risk the league will have to take if they want to grow the game globally. And unfortunately, the flag football stars will be collateral damage.
The star power of NFL players is sure to win out whenever these tryouts happen. And it’s not like NFL stars have never played flag football before. They do 7-on-7 drills often, and the Pro Bowl has turned into a flag football game in recent years.
