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For the first time since June, there are no NFL or CFL games happening this weekend.
Instead, as we await the Super Bowl next Sunday in New Orleans, football fans will have to make do with the Pro Bowl Games. The NFL's all-star showcase begins tonight in Orlando, Fla., with some skills competitions and culminates Sunday with more skills events and a flag football game.
The NFL changed the Pro Bowl game from tackle to flag in 2023. Later that year, flag football was officially added to the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, which will feature both a men's and women's event. The NFL lobbied for that to happen and has continued to support and promote flag football — a fast-growing, more accessible version of the American-dominated sport — as part of the league's efforts to expand its reach around the world.
Which begs the ongoing question: will we see a football Dream Team in L.A.?
The short answer is that it's too early to tell. But the NFL seems interested in having some of its biggest stars compete in the Olympics, and football's U.S. governing body has indicated it's open to the possibility.
Some stars could be on board too, including both quarterbacks in next week's Super Bowl. Kansas City's Patrick Mahomes said he would "definitely want to" play in the Olympics, while the Philadelphia Eagles' Jalen Hurts was named a flag football ambassador for the 2028 Games. Hurts starred in an NFL-sanctioned ad where he lit the Olympic torch at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum by throwing a flaming football (with a little CGI help, of course) and then turned to the camera and said "It's our turn."
Cincinnati Bengals QB Joe Burrow, the NFL leader in passing yards and touchdowns this season, also expressed interest in the Olympics and suggested that he and his former college teammates Justin Jefferson and Ja'Marr Chase — probably the two best receivers in the league — should maybe be reunited. Jefferson has starred in a commercial for NFL Flag (which has more than a half million youth athletes in the U.S. and Canada) and electrifying Miami Dolphins receiver Tyreek Hill called for a "super team" of NFL stars to represent the United States in L.A.
But not everyone is thrilled with the idea. The existing U.S. men's national flag football team has won five straight world championships, and quarterback Darrell Doucette called it "disrespectful" for NFL players to assume they can just step in for guys who devoted years to building up the national team and helping flag football reach this moment in the sun.
There's also the question of whether every NFL star is suited to the unique rules of flag football, which is played on a field half as long and about half as wide as the NFL gridiron. Each team's roster has 12 players, but only five are on the field at any time instead of 11. One pass rusher is allowed from a distance of seven yards from the snap, but blocking is prohibited (so forget those beefy linemen and old-school statuesque quarterbacks). And there are no running plays within five yards of the endzone (tough one for Derrick Henry).The world's best flag football players have also mastered a specialized set of skills and tactics that might be foreign to NFLers. Trickery like laterals and double passes are commonplace, while the moves to avoid getting your flag pulled (like dropping the hips) are an art unto themselves — and quite different from breaking a tackle.
Now, these skills could certainly be taught to NFL players. And I think that flag football's defenders can sometimes underestimate how much NFL stars' superior athleticism would help them dominate any form of football. An All-Pro receiver like Jefferson, Chase or Hill is uncoverable in a phone booth, so the smaller flag field probably wouldn't really hinder them. And Mahomes' precision passing and underrated ability to scramble or extend plays with his legs would probably be just as much of a nightmare for flag defences as they are for his NFL foes.
But there are differences, and even the best football players in the world could need some time to catch up. After observing Doucette's team, former NFL receiver Chad Ochocinco, who's now a broadcaster, said he thinks they would beat a team of top NFL players because of "the nuances [and] the tricks you can do to manipulate the game."
Even Mahomes isn't sure he'll be able to hang by the time the L.A. Games roll around. "I've seen some of those guys play flag football and they are a little faster than I am," the three-time Super Bowl MVP said in 2023. "I know there aren't linemen blocking for you. I'll be 32 years old, so if I can still move around, I'm going to try to get out there."