As the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics wound down, many sports fans began thinking of the 2028 Summer Olympics, coming to Los Angeles. Those Games will feature some new sports, including flag football. The NFL leaned into that fact as the Paris Games wound down, unveiling an advertisement featuring Jalen Hurts, with the tagline “it’s our turn.” Hurts was not the only NFL figure speaking out about the league’s players potentially participating in the 2028 Summer Olympics, as both NFL Executive Vice President Peter O’Reilly and Commissioner Roger Goodell have supported the idea of NFL players participating.
However, one figure in the sport has pushed back on the idea: Darrell ‘Housh’ Doucette, the quarterback of the United States National Flag Football team. Doucette has been outspoken in recent days, making the case that NFL players should not automatically assume they will have spots on the 2028 team.
“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 to The Guardian. “Give the guys who helped this game get to where it’s at their respect.”
Doucette does have a point, as he has led the current team to several World Championships, and is set to help them defend their title at the end of the month. He has helped Team USA win the 2021 IFAF Men’s Flag Football World Championship, take gold in the 2022 World Games, and win the 2023 Americas Continental Flag Football Championship. He was named MVP in that Championship. His highlights in the sport speak for themselves, as the NFL attested to a few years ago when they put together this package of his prowess on the field.
However, in the past few days, Doucette might have taken things a step further, when he questioned perhaps the NFL’s best quarterback in Patrick Mahomes. In an interview with TMZ Sports, Doucette had this to say: “At the end of the day, I feel like I’m better than Patrick Mahomes because of my IQ of the game.”
Now, Doucette might simply be referring to his IQ of flag football, and not football at large. Because Mahomes checks every box there is when it comes to the NFL game.
But the Super Bowl-winning passer was not about to let that slide:
That’s right folks, we now have some certified, Grade-A, Flag Football Beef.
Time to get our friends at Secret Base on the case.
