{"id":713989,"date":"2026-06-19T17:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T17:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/713989\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T17:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T17:47:08","slug":"roger-goodell-absolutely-expects-to-see-active-and-retired-nfl-players-in-2028-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/713989\/","title":{"rendered":"Roger Goodell “absolutely” expects to see active and retired NFL players in 2028 Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

In only two years, flag football will make its Olympic debut. The NFL has decided to make up to one active player per franchise available to participate.<\/p>\n

Does Commissioner Roger Goodell expect to see NFL players in the Olympic flag football tournament?<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely<\/a>,\u201d Goodell told Suzy Schuster during a recent interview on Women\u2019s Sports Now. \u201cWe approved it a year ago, and I\u2019ve had a lot of players that have said, \u2018We want to participate in that.\u2019 It sets up really well because it\u2019s before [training] camps. It\u2019ll be the first week of the Olympics . . . .<\/p>\n

\u201cListen, these players are competitors, and they love the big stage. And to win a gold medal, or any medal, is something I think they would all treasure, and they talk about it all the time. So I absolutely believe we\u2019re gonna have players in the Olympics \u2014 active players and probably some retired players.\u201d<\/p>\n

First, the active (and retired) NFL players must be selected for the U.S. men\u2019s national flag football team. The Fanatics Flag Football Classic demonstrated the very real differences between tackle football and flag football. There\u2019s an emphasis on shiftiness and speed. Versatility is a must.<\/p>\n

The players who want to compete will need to be willing to make the appropriate time commitment. For now, the extent to which the qualification process or eventual training sessions will conflict with offseason NFL workouts isn\u2019t known. <\/p>\n

USA Football expects to announce the Olympic selection procedures later this year<\/a>. At that point, active NFL players will be able to assess whether they\u2019re willing and able to moonlight as flag football players.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the question of whether the NFL players will be better than the current flag football players. Flag standout Darrell \u201cHoush\u201d Doucette recently estimated that, eventually, one or two NFL players will land on the 10-man Olympic roster.<\/p>\n

With or without active (or retired) NFL players, the inclusion of flag football in the Olympics will help fuel the ongoing global growth of the sport. That\u2019s why the NFL is firmly behind it \u2014 and why the NFL will soon be launching a men\u2019s and women\u2019s professional flag football leagues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In only two years, flag football will make its Olympic debut. The NFL has decided to make up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713990,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-713989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713989","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=713989"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713989\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}