Flag Football Player Feels ‘Kicked to the Side’ with NFL Players Seemingly Taking Priority in 2028 L.A. Olympics

Flag shot will return halfway shape astatine nan 2028 Olympics successful Los Angeles, but immoderate of nan sport's champion athletes are concerned they'll beryllium pushed retired successful favour of big-name NFL stars.

After NFL squad owners unanimously voted to let nan league's players to compete successful nan 2028 Games, arsenic portion of nan league's efforts to grow its world fanbase, athletes who already play master emblem shot are worried astir their chances of making nan 10-person Olympic roster.

Flag backmost Darrell "Housh" Doucette, a four-time world champion for nan United States' team, expressed his concerns successful a caller question and reply pinch The Washington Post.

Doucette, 35, said, "The emblem guys merit their opportunity. That's each we want. We felt for illustration we worked difficult to get nan athletics to wherever it's at, and past erstwhile nan NFL guys said astir it, it was for illustration we were getting kicked to nan side."

The backmost said he felt for illustration he was "the feline who could speak retired for my peers, for my brothers that's been moving difficult to get to this level, for america not to beryllium forgotten."

“This is simply a athletics that we’ve played for a agelong time," Doucette continued, "and we consciousness for illustration we are nan champion astatine it and we don’t request different guys. But we each person 1 extremity successful mind, and that’s to correspond our country. We’re decidedly unfastened to each competition. If those guys travel successful and shot retired and they’re amended than us, hats disconnected to them. Go triumph that golden badge for our country.”

While NFL stars for illustration Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen person acquisition connected nan NFL field, Doucette told nan Washington Post that emblem and tackle shot are excessively different to moreover comparison nan basal skillsets.

“It’s wholly 2 different games,” he said. “You can’t really comparison emblem shot and tackle football."

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Doucette said those successful nan NFL "don't understand" immoderate of nan emblem shot strategies. “These are things that we believe and we activity connected to go great,” Doucette said.

Minnesota Vikings linebacker Brian Asamoah reportedly echoed that connection erstwhile he said to reporters aft nan NFL's unanimous vote, according to nan Washington Post.

“It requires a batch of different abilities that football, successful general, doesn’t require, but you decidedly person to person speed, elusiveness and being capable to get distant from people,” Asamoah said, adding, "It’s a wholly different game.”

Per nan NFL's qualifications for nan Olympic roster, Team USA's roster for nan 2028 Games tin see only 1 subordinate from nan aforesaid NFL team, according to CBS.

“We’re fortunate to person a talent excavation that already features salient emblem shot stars who person helped USA Football found a gold-medal modular successful world competition,” USA Football CEO Scott Hallenbeck said successful a statement, per the Washington Post.