Let the stars play: Why the NFL should send a Dream Team to the 2028 Olympics

Picture a warm July night in Los Angeles. The breeze from the Pacific Ocean drifting over the stadium lights at BMO Stadium in downtown Los Angeles. The Olympic flame burns bright in the background at the peristyle of the LA Coliseum up against a Southern California sunset of purple and pink. 22,000 fans rise from their seats to stand and applaud the players of the gold medal game in flag football.

Patrick Mahomes. Justin Jefferson. Ja’Marr Chase. Saquon Barkley. Sauce Gardner. Micah Parsons. Myles Garret. Travis Hunter. Patrick Surtain II.

And somewhere out there in the world, a kid from Norway, Brazil, Serbia, or Sudan is watching football for the first time and thinking the same thought millions of kids in the summer of 1992 had.

US flag football player Darrell “Housh” Doucette scores a touchdown during the men’s flag football game between USA and Australia at USA Football’s “Summer Series” at Dignity Health Sports Park on Sunday, June 22, 2025 in Carson, CA. Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

I want to play that.

That is exactly why NFL players should be allowed — and encouraged — to play flag football in the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Not because the United States needs them to win.

Because the world needs to see them.

In 1992, the United States sent the greatest basketball roster ever assembled to the Barcelona Olympics. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley — the roster read like mythology.

Could a team of lesser-known American pros or college players have still won the gold medal that year?

Probably.

But that wasn’t the point.

The world didn’t want anonymity.

The world wanted greatness.

The first U.S. Olympic Dream team helped usher in a more international era of high-end basketball. AP

The Dream Team didn’t just win. They detonated across the global sports landscape like fireworks over the Mediterranean Sea. Kids in Spain, Lithuania, Argentina, Serbia and France watched those games and decided basketball was suddenly going to be their sport.

Three decades later, the effects are everywhere. Nikola Jokic, Luka Doncic, Victor Wembanyama — global stars forged in the shadow of that Olympic moment.

The Dream Team didn’t just win gold.

It globalized the game.

Football now sits at the same crossroads.

The International Olympic Committee approved the sport of flag football for the LA28 Olympics. It moves the sport out of the backyards and parks into the limelight. Flag football is played by roughly 20 million people across more than 100 countries. It’s one of the fastest-growing sports on the planet. It’s faster, safer, gender-inclusive, and far easier to introduce in places where full-contact football is more difficult to organize.

But here’s the truth nobody wants to say out loud:

The Olympic debut of a sport is a fragile moment.

Do it right, and you launch a global movement.

Do it wrong, and it becomes a curiosity people forget by the next Summer Games.

Remember breakdancing in Paris?

The easiest way to launch flag football into the global stratosphere is to send the NFL stars.

Think about the visual spectacle for a second.

Mahomes has built his career off of improvisation amid chaos to create highlight reel plays. Getty Images

Mahomes rolling right and slinging a touchdown to Justin Jefferson on a 50-yard Olympic field.

Lamar Jackson juking defenders who are trying desperately to grab a flag instead of making a tackle.

Jayden Daniels sprinting through space like a track star with a football.

Puka Nacua flexing after a touchdown in front of a roaring Los Angeles crowd.

On defense?

Sauce Gardner picking off a pass against Team Mexico.

Micah Parsons and Myles Garrett chasing down the Team Germany quarterback in open grass.

Drop some of the most famous athletes on Earth into the Olympics — the biggest three-week television event on the planet — and the ratings will explode.

NBC would schedule Team USA flag football games on prime time against badminton and fencing and laugh all the way to the commercial break.

But here’s the uncomfortable part of this conversation.

Puka Nacua was one of the most electrifying receivers last season. AP

The current U.S. Men’s Flag Football National Team has dominated the sport for years.

They’ve won world championships.

They’ve traveled the globe on modest budgets.

Many of them juggle regular jobs — truck drivers, landscapers, airline baggage handlers — while representing their country with pride and reverence. 

They built this sport from scratch.

So the concern that NFL players could swoop in and take Olympic roster spots like football royalty arriving at a village tournament is understandable and should be considered. 

U.S. Men’s IFAF flag football quarterback Darrell “Housh” Doucette put NFL players on notice when he told TMZ last year, “I feel like I’m better than Patrick Mahomes because of my IQ of the game.”

No one gets to the quarterback quite like Myles Garrett. AP

For years, Doucette has told us that flag football is different from the pros.

There’s no blocks, no stiff arms, no contact. There’s less players – five-on-five – and a smaller field. Plus, pulling a flag is a skill that looks closer to ballet than tackle football.

NFL stars would need some time to learn it, but there’s no doubt they would master it.

The solution isn’t exclusion, it’s collaboration.

Let the current crop of Team USA players help coach, train, and compete for roster spots. Mix specialists with NFL athletes. Build the best team possible.

Give the pioneers their flowers.

But give the world its spectacle.

Here in LA, we’ll get our first taste of flag football when Tom Brady and a handful of current and past NFL stars compete in the Fanatics Flag Football Classic on Saturday, March 21, after it was moved from Saudi Arabia to the same stadium where flag football will be played for the Olympics.

The Fanatics event will feature three, 12-player teams that will include Brady, Jalen Hurts, Joe Burrow, Rob Gronkowski, Saquon Barkley, Myles Garrett, and Odell Beckham Jr.  

It will also include the U.S. Men’s IFAF flag football team featuring Doucette and Aamir Brown, who asked to be included and were invited by Brady.

The two teams featuring NFL players will square off against the current world champion flag football team, giving us a glimpse of what a collaboration in the summer of 2028 could look like.

NFL owners have already approved Olympic participation only with protections — insurance, medical standards, salary cap relief for injuries.

An ACL tear in July could wreck a franchise’s season before it begins.

Training camps begin around the same time as the Olympics.

There will be logistical headaches, contract clauses, and nervous general managers.

But Olympic moments have always required risk.

That’s what makes them so unforgettable.

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The NFL has spent years trying to globalize its product.

Games in Germany, London, Spain, Brazil, and soon Australia.

The league wants international fans.

The Olympics deliver them instantly.

Put Mahomes, Jefferson, and company on the Olympic stage in Los Angeles and kids across five continents will suddenly understand the sport.

They’ll start playing flag football.

Then tackle football.

Then maybe one day they’ll make the NFL themselves.

That’s exactly how basketball conquered the world.

The United States will probably win Olympic gold in flag football with or without NFL players.

That isn’t the question.

The real question is this:

Do we want the first Olympic flag football tournament to be memorable and historic?

Because history doesn’t remember anonymous champions.

History remembers the stars.

So when the Olympic torch burns in Los Angeles in 2028, Team USA shouldn’t send a flag football team.

It should send the 2028 NFL Dream Team.