Do We Really NEED NFL Players Playing Flag Football in the Olympics???

With LA28 on the horizon and flag football on the program, the show wrestled with a question raised by the recent Fanatics game: do we really need NFL players in Olympic flag football? Roger Goodell's answer is an emphatic yes.

Speaking to Suzy on Women's Sports Now, the commissioner said he absolutely envisions NFL players, both active and retired, in the Olympics. The league approved it a year ago, plenty of players have said they want in, and the calendar cooperates: flag football falls in the first week of the Games, before training camps. These players are competitors who love the big stage, Goodell said, and the chance to win any medal is something they'd treasure.

The show wasn't so sure, drawing on having been at the Tom Brady-led Fanatics flag game where professional flag players ran up and down the field and destroyed the NFL guys. The takeaway was blunt. Flag football is a different sport, closer to lacrosse, with backward passing and constant resets. One player walked off the practice field and summed it up: I don't know what this is, but it isn't football. And it wasn't a slam, just a fact. Saquon Barkley can't run through anyone in flag; he has to run around them, which makes the format better suited to a make-you-miss returner type like KaVontae Turpin than to a power back. Standing Tom Brady or Joe Burrow back there to pick people apart simply doesn't translate.

Still, the show's prediction was that NFL players will be there, because, as Goodell put it, they need to be, for the growth of the game. Team USA will win regardless, with a roster built predominantly around the best American professional flag players, but a handful of NFL names will be sprinkled in. The schedule is jammed into the front of the Games specifically so participants don't miss camp, and with only about one player allowed per team, it won't be a major roster issue. The lingering question, after watching Burrow literally get his pants pulled down chasing a flag, is whether teams will actually want their stars out there.