NFL expected to approve players in ’28 Games, but should it?

IF AND WHEN NFL players are permitted to represent Team USA in flag football during the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, Minnesota Vikings running back Aaron Jones would like to convey a simple message:

Sign me up.

“Flag football players may be upset at me for this, but yes, I would absolutely love it,” Jones said. “Every other sport gets an opportunity to win a gold medal, and if you’re not serving your country in the military, I feel like that’s the other highest honor that you can represent your country in.”

Jones and many of the key stakeholders needed to make this a reality have already made their positions clear on the idea of NFL players participating in the Olympic debut of flag football.

“Man, that notion of being able to represent your country, whether you’re going to represent Team USA, Asia, Mexico — whatever — that’s the ultimate dream,” NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent said.

Among players, Jones is joined by many — including Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Miami Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill — who have expressed interest.

“It’s a perfect opportunity to get everybody playing one sport, representing America as a whole, and hopefully get a gold medal,” New England Patriots receiver Stefon Diggs told ESPN.

The prospect even has support among owners.

“That’s exciting and positive for the NFL,” Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said. “I can see that and identify with that real quick… I’m a fan of what the Olympics can do for interest in your sport.”

With so much common ground, it might seem as if NFL players suiting up in the Los Angeles Games would be a slam dunk. In reality, it will require the parties to navigate many thorny issues.

When NFL owners convene in Minnesota this week for their spring meeting, they are expected to approve a resolution released last Thursday that aims to make this a reality. They vote Tuesday, and the resolution needs to be approved by at least 24 of the 32 team owners.

Many of the final details remain a long way off and are yet to be negotiated between the NFL, the players’ union and Olympic governing bodies. For now, the proposal calls for the six participating nations (which have not yet been identified) to select a maximum of one NFL player each, with Team USA expected to be capped at 10 players.

“I think overall, [flag football in the Olympics is] a great thing,” Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutenkunst said. “I’d love it if we kept the NFL players out of it.”

But the NFL is all-in on flag football, with the league having long ago determined it is a key to solidifying the next generation’s interest in football. The NFL is partnering with flag programs across the country to support growth of the game, including the rapid growth of girls flag football at the youth and high school level. The league is also in the early stages of developing separate professional flag leagues for men and women, with initial investor bids already submitted.

Flag competition in the Olympics is also key to the NFL’s efforts to expand interest in the game globally, with the league’s international efforts becoming more of a central focus. The NFL is scheduled to play seven international games this year, including its first regular-season games in Dublin, Berlin and Madrid. Having flag football as part of the world’s grandest international sporting event is seen as a major win by the NFL, which strongly supported the effort to add flag football to the Olympics.

But that does not mean getting NFL players to that stage will come without obstacles.

“It’s definitely a work in progress,” Vincent said. “For the [teams], how do you get to a place where you’re comfortable, making sure all of the safeguards are in place, in the event that one of your athletes maybe puts his hand up to potentially participate?

“Making sure that we, the league, clubs, players, players’ association, everyone’s taking all of the right precautionary measures in the event that someone wants to go represent the country, that is still a work in progress.”

IF OWNERS VOTE to pass the resolution, which sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter is expected, it merely authorizes the NFL to work toward the goals outlined in the proposal, with all future agreements subject to the outcome of negotiations with the NFL Players Association and the various Olympic governing bodies.

Injury protection would, perhaps, be the biggest obstacle.

Currently, injuries that occur away from official team functions are classified as “non-football injuries,” and teams are not required to pay a player’s salary while he recovers from one. But the resolution proposes injury protection and salary-cap relief stemming from an injury to a player participating in the Olympics.

The league would also seek an agreement with Olympic officials to ensure that NFL minimum standards are met for medical staffs and playing fields used for competitions.

Flag football is not as dangerous as tackle football. That’s why the NFL has moved to a flag-football model in the Pro Bowl Games in recent years. But the prospect of injuries remains real and must be accounted for in advance.

As a result, there isn’t universal agreement that this is a good idea.

Gutenkunst, for example, cited “the risk” of injury as the thing that gave him pause.

Insurance arrangements will be a major component of resolving this issue. The resolution states one or more league-wide insurance policies would be sought for injury protection.

Of course, covering financial losses from an injury is only part of the equation. It does not, for instance, make losing a key player any less painful when it comes to replacing him on the field.

“We want the best possible health and safety standards, just like we do in a [NFL] game,” said Jeff Miller, NFL executive vice president for communications, public affairs and policy. “So, we want to talk to the players association about the fields, we want to talk to the governing body and others who may be in the business of regulating that to make sure that we get that right.”

Not to be ignored here is the potential conflict of Olympic duties with the NFL’s offseason and training camp schedule. NFL training camps occur in late July, and the ’28 Games are scheduled for July 14-30.

The NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball long ago figured out ways in which their players could participate in international competitions, so there are blueprints for the NFL to follow.

But it’s a new concept for football, which has a three-phase offseason program that usually begins before the draft in April and lasts until mid-June. The resolution in front of owners is vague on this front, saying only that “flag-football games and related events” should be scheduled in a way “that does not unreasonably conflict with an NFL player’s league and club commitments.”

What that means, specifically, remains to be seen. The current expectation of national team hopefuls under USA Football — the sport’s governing body in the United States — is that they attend the Team USA training camp prior to international competitions. That’s when evaluations are made and the final roster and alternates selected. How all of this would dovetail with the NFL’s offseason workout schedule and preseason camps remains unclear.

When the topic was broached recently with Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh, he wasn’t exactly thrilled about the possibility of his dual-threat quarterback, two-time Most Valuable Player Lamar Jackson, being absent for portions of an offseason.

“I’m afraid I have a quarterback that’d probably be pretty good at [flag football], so, no, I’m not that excited about that in all honesty,” Harbaugh said. “I believe in America. I want gold medals, but …”

The NFL could modify its schedule, as the NHL has agreed to do by instituting an Olympic break during the 2026 and 2030 Winter Games. But it’s unclear whether such a solution has been broached.

Cleveland Browns general manager Andrew Berry brought some levity to the debate, addressing the hypothetical of a star player like Mahomes participating in the ’28 Games. Go for it, Berry effectively said, hinting that Mahomes’ absence wouldn’t be ideal for AFC powerhouse Kansas City — but possibly beneficial for opponents.

“I’m perhaps a little bit skeptical that maybe we’ll see the Patrick Mahomeses of the world skip [training camp], as much as I’d be very in favor of that, if he’s listening,” Berry said. “Skip training camp and do the Olympics.

“I think it remains to be seen what that looks like. But I want that to be successful for our sport.”

MEDICAL RESEARCHERS HAVE only recently begun collecting data on the health impact and injury risks of flag football. A 2021 study led by a physician at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicated that head injuries in flag football are about 15 times less common than tackle football at comparable age levels.

The relatively nonviolent nature of flag football promotes a perception of low risk for some of the NFL’s most important decision-makers.

“[Injuries] wouldn’t be an issue for me,” Jerry Jones said. “Timing, availability, conflicts [would be]. But I wouldn’t be concerned with injuries. Not with flag.”

Should Jones be more concerned? Dr. Robert Parisien, orthopedic sports medicine surgeon from New York Mt. Sinai Health System, coauthored a 2025 study analyzing 10 years of flag football injury data pulled from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System. The study found 2,508 injuries attributed to flag football over that period that were serious enough to be presented in hospital emergency rooms, and it determined that the most common injuries for adults were to fingers, possibly as they extended to grab flags, as well as sprains and strains.

“There’s certainly risk of injury in flag football,” Parisien said, “and that’s sort of one of the misnomers, that flag football has a very low risk of injury to it. Head collisions and trauma may be less in flag football than in contact football, but it still occurs. You see some muscle strains, tendon strains, but it’s really tough to extrapolate and see what a young NFL-caliber athlete may experience.

Jalen Ramsey showing no mercy to Tyreek Hill at the Pro Bowl 😂

🎥: @NFL pic.twitter.com/178hLtjlnY

— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) February 5, 2023

“Because I will say that in flag football, especially if you’re playing it aggressively and you’re that level of athlete, you’re playing at the competitive level that they’re going to play this at, they’re certainly at risk for head trauma, and absolutely strains and sprains like usual. But they’re at risk for concussions. They’re at risk for ligamentous injury. The most common mechanism, for example, for an ACL rupture is a noncontact twisting injury. That’s not contact-related.”

The NFL needs only to go back in its own history to find the nightmare scenario. Patriots running back Robert Edwards suffered a catastrophic left knee injury while playing a sanctioned flag football game on a beach in Hawaii during Pro Bowl week in February 1999. Edwards tore all three ligaments in the knee, partially tore a fourth and also ruptured an artery after jumping to catch a pass. He missed three full seasons, returned for a brief stint with the Miami Dolphins in 2002 and eventually retired.

Edwards’ plight is an extreme example and may have been exacerbated by sand that won’t be present at the Olympics. But Parisien referenced it as a reminder of the range of risk.

“I’m sure in his mind he thought, ‘Well, I’m only playing flag football. I am probably going to be fine. I’ll just go and have some fun, right?'” Parisien said. “Don’t get me wrong. Personally, I think it’s wonderful that these athletes want to compete in flag football under our flag and represent our country. I think that’s fantastic. I personally think that’s a wonderful thing that they want to do.

“But as a physician, I have to say that of course they’re at risk of injury.”

DARRELL “HOUSH” DOUCETTE is one of the world’s premier flag players. A quarterback on Team USA and the longest-tenured member of the national team, Doucette was among the players called upon by the NFL to give players a crash course on flag football before recent Pro Bowls.

Doucette doesn’t have the name recognition of the NFL’s biggest stars, but he still believes he is just as well-suited to play for a gold medal as many of the best players in pro football. He welcomes the competition — just not the assumptions about the end result.

“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,” he told The Guardian last year. “They still have to go out there and compete.”

He’s got a point.

The idea of NFL players competing in the Olympics might be exciting, but there are a slew of players who have been competing on the global stage in flag football — and, in the case of Team USA, dominating — for years. The U.S. men have won the past five world championships. The women have won the past three.

The NFL has players with ties to more than 70 countries, so there is a long list of nations that players could potentially represent in the Olympics. But for American players and those from countries with a long history of competing, there should be no assumption that NFL players will be best suited to what is a very different game.

“At the end of the day, I feel like I’m better than Patrick Mahomes because of my IQ of the game.”

-US Flag football QB Darrell Doucette

pic.twitter.com/G2gKTWHctj

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) August 21, 2024

“There’s some subtle differences between tackle football and flag football, and I’m not going to assume that tackle football players are the very best option, to be quite honest with you,” Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said. “We’ll see. It’s going to be exciting and interesting for me. Seems like size is less of a factor in flag football. We might have … a bunch of 140-pound guys running around out there. I don’t know.”

Currently, there are various requirements set forth by USA Football that players must go through before ascending to the U.S. national team (each national team can develop its own process). Athletes who advance receive an invite to the USA Football trials, where the pool is trimmed to 60 players. Those players advance to the USA Football training camp, where the final roster — 10 players for the 2028 Olympics — will be selected.

That’s a potentially lengthy process, perhaps complicating NFL players’ ability to pursue a roster spot. But a streamlined pathway for NFL players could be implemented if they receive approval to compete.

“If NFL players are eligible, we’re ready to help create opportunities for these athletes to showcase their skills and be included on the national team,” said Scott Hallenbeck, CEO and executive director of USA Football. “USA Football’s ultimate goal is to bring home two gold medals in flag football, and we’re committed to exploring every path to build the strongest Team USA possible.”

But for NFL players to be a part of that effort, a labyrinth of issues must first be navigated. And the parties aren’t quite there just yet.

“How do we go about it, crossing all the T’s, dotting all the I’s, making sure everyone’s comfortable?” Vincent said. “There’s still some work to do for sure.”

Brooke Pryor, Daniel Oyefusi, Rob Demovsky and Jamison Hensley contributed to this report.