{"id":555367,"date":"2026-03-31T02:55:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T02:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/555367\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:55:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T02:55:08","slug":"jayden-daniels-flag-football-experiment-had-commanders-leaders-nervous-but-supportive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/555367\/","title":{"rendered":"Jayden Daniels\u2019 flag football experiment had Commanders leaders nervous but supportive"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX \u2014 Josh Harris and Adam Peters are just like everyone else who cares about the Washington Commanders: They were nervous when their team\u2019s star quarterback, Jayden Daniels, agreed to play in the Fanatics Flag Football Classic<\/a> in Los Angeles earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not gonna say I wasn\u2019t nervous, but, uh, glad that we got through that one,\u201d Harris, the team owner, said Monday as part of a wide-ranging interview with reporters<\/a> at the NFL\u2019s annual meetings. \u201cHe\u2019s our guy. We have a lot of faith in him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Harris and Peters, the GM, said they left the decision to participate up to Daniels and told their quarterback they would support him no matter what. But doing so didn\u2019t necessarily placate their nerves, especially after Daniels dealt with three different injuries that limited him to seven games last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was really Jayden\u2019s call,\u201d Harris said. \u201cThe league doesn\u2019t really get involved in that, and everyone took their own point of view on that. My point of view was that Jayden\u2019s someone I trust, he\u2019s an individual. He\u2019s a grown man, a grown person, and I left that decision up to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peters said he was in communication with Daniels about participating since the event was announced.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, you\u2019re concerned,\u201d Peters admitted. \u201cI think all of us were probably concerned about that, not just me. Probably me the most. But understanding that it was something that was important to him and just talking about the risk and the risk versus reward and all of that, and then he\u2019s got to make the decision on his own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we supported whatever he wanted to do, and the thing about Jayden is he loves football,\u201d Peters added. \u201cHe loves playing, he loves competing, and so I think that was something that was important to him. So I\u2019m glad he did it and I\u2019m glad he came out healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The five-on-five exhibition tournament featured former and current NFL players, as well as celebrities and members of the U.S. men\u2019s national flag football team to promote the sport ahead of the 2028 Olympics. The event, which was billed as a partnership between Tom Brady, Fanatics, Fox Sports and OBB Media, was originally scheduled to be held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but was later moved to BMO Stadium in Los Angeles because of the war in Iran.<\/p>\n

Brady served as captain of the \u201cFounders,\u201d while Daniels was captain of the \u201cWildcats.\u201d Both teams were trounced by Team USA<\/a> in a broadcast that reportedly generated modest ratings on Fox, with an average of 650,000 viewers and a peak of 909,000, according to Sports Business Journal<\/a>. Fanatics said the tournament generated more than 300 million views across all platforms within the first 24 hours.<\/p>\n

The NFL has promoted and helped spur the growth of flag football, viewing it as a tool to expand interest in the game. On Monday, the league took it a step further and announced<\/a> that it is partnering with TMRW Sports to develop and operate a professional flag football league for women and men with support from an \u201cinfluential investor pool\u201d that includes NFL teams, current and former players, and established \u201cinstitutional and strategic investors.\u201d The NFL\u2019s \u201c32 Equity\u201d investment arm will invest up to $32 million to help launch the league.<\/p>\n

Despite the league\u2019s promotional interest in the Fanatics event \u2014 Commissioner Roger Goodell attended \u2014 active NFL players still had to receive written consent from their teams to participate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX \u2014 Josh Harris and Adam Peters are just like everyone else who cares about the Washington Commanders:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99,3851],"class_list":{"0":"post-555367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-washington-commanders"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}