Flag Football's Darrell Doucette III Wants Shot at Olympics, 'Don't Need' NFL Players

Darrell Doucette III, who played quarterback for Team USA's men's national flag football team, believes that the squad's current players are the best fit to lead the Americans at the 2028 Summer Olympics, when flag football will make its debut at the Games.

“This is a sport that we’ve played for a long time, and we feel like we are the best at it and we don’t need other guys,” Doucette told Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post. “But we all have one goal in mind, and that’s to represent our country. We’re definitely open to all competition. If those guys come in and ball out and they’re better than us, hats off to them. Go win that gold medal for our country.”

Doucette also feels that he and his teammates are getting "kicked to the side" with NFL players being officially allowed to participate after league owners met earlier this month at the Spring League Meeting and approved pros being allowed to try out for spots

“The flag guys deserve their opportunity. That’s all we want,” Doucette said. “We felt like we worked hard to get the sport to where it’s at, and then when the NFL guys spoke about it, it was like we were getting kicked to the side. I felt like I was the guy who could speak out for my peers, for my brothers that’s been working hard to get to this level, for us not to be forgotten.”

Doucette has been outspoken in defense of himself and his teammates, notably saying that he was a better fit to lead Team USA than three-time Super Bowl MVP and Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

"At the end of the day," Doucette told us, "I feel like I'm better than Patrick Mahomes because of my IQ of the game."

“I’m not hiding from the competition, none of my teammates nor anybody else in the flag football world are hiding from the competition,” Doucette also noted. “But at the end of the day, I feel like I’m better than Patrick Mahomes because of my IQ of the game. I know he’s right now the best in the league, I know he’s more accurate, I know he has all these intangibles, but when it comes to flag football, I feel like I know more than him.”

Kilgore spoke with Chad Palmer, who coached the Canadian national team’s flag football coach for eight seasons, about whether he would rather face NFL pros or flag football players. He answered that he'd rather go up against flag football players before adding:

“The transferables are all over the place,” Palmer said. “If you take a Ja’Marr Chase — he’s spent his entire life route-running and finding leverage in coverage and understanding football and getting paid a lot of money to do it. How can a player that’s playing a rec sport in the past be even in the same stratosphere? No chance.

“Even in Canada, we will be made up of mostly NFLers, I would think. All the countries doing the right thing will pick the best players for the spot. They all have to try out. But I don’t think the current guys who have been doing it for a long time will hold a candle to the pros.”

Obviously, Doucette wants he and his teammates to get their chance at representing their country and winning a gold medal, so it's no surprise that he's speaking out. Although he makes some fair points regarding their experience in flag football, if the league's elite talents try their hand at making the pro team, the current squad may have a very hard time making it to Los Angeles in 2028.