With the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics just a few years away, eyes are turning to the handful of new sports coming to LA. One — flag football — is garnering particular excitement, as the all-American sport will make it Olympic debut in just four years.
While fans are excited about the idea of Team USA fielding a team of NFL stars, current USA flag football quarterback Darrell “Housh” Doucette has something to say about that. In an interview with The Guardian published Saturday, Doucette said that NFL players expecting to get an easy roster spot might not find it so easy.
“We just don’t think they’re going to be able to walk on the field and make the Olympic team because of the name, right?” Doucette told The Guardian. “They still have to go out there and compete.”
Doucette took issue with a promotion released by the NFL where Jalen Hurts — Philadelphia Eagles quarterback and an NFL flag football ambassador — lights the Olympic torch with a flaming football and tells the camera “It’s our turn.” Per The Guardian, Doucette believed that Hurts was indicating his desire to play — but Team USA already has a quarterback.
Other NFL quarterbacks, including Joe Burrow and Caleb Williams, have also said that they would like to play on the Olympic team. Doucette said that he can expect players to want to try out for the team, but that they shouldn’t take those spots for granted.
“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,” Doucette said. “Give the guys who helped this game get to where it’s at their respect.”
For years, the NFL has lobbied heavily for flag football’s inclusion in the Olympics, in part as a way to give the sport a more global reach. As a result, flag football was officially added to the LA 2028 program, alongside baseball/softball, cricket, lacrosse sixes and squash as additional sports in Los Angeles.
The 2028 Olympics will feature both men’s and women’s flag football. Team USA‘s men’s team has won five of the last six world championships; the U.S. women’s team is also highly successful, and has won the past two world championships in 2018 and 2022.
Doucette, who is 35, has been successful for Team USA, helping the team to a 2021 world championship in Jerusalem, a gold medal at the 2022 World Games in Birmingham, Alabama, and an Americas Continental championship in 2023, where he won MVP.
He was also a member of an amateur squad that, in 2018, defeated a team of former NFL players on national television. Doucette led the team to a 20-point win over the NFL squad, which included running back Justin Forsett and former Seattle Seahawks quarterback Seneca Wallace, and was coached by Michael Johnson, a four-time Olympic gold medalist in track.
Per the Guardian, Doucette’s success in that 2018 game was largely due to the team’s speed, plus the ability to pull off fakes and laterals in a way that the tackle players weren’t used to. As a result, NFL players hoping to join the flag football team might find that the game is difficult to adjust to, especially with a squad of players who have been playing the sport for years.
“It’s not that we need these guys,” Doucette told The Guardian, speaking about NFL players hoping to be Olympians. “Because we’re already great with who we have.”
Doucette and Team USA will soon travel to Finland for the 2024 world championship, where they will defend their title starting on August 27 in a tournament featuring 31 other nations.
Source Agencies
