Mark Madden's Hot Take: NFL should leave flag football alone

The NFL is narcissistic, obnoxious and overbearing in its desire to be everywhere, all the time, 24/7/365.

It doesn’t make the great unwashed love the NFL any less. But if anything has ever been too popular, it’s the NFL. (Besides populist fascist dictators.)

The NFL’s latest victim is shaping up to be flag football.

Flag football will be contested in the Olympics for the first time at the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Games.

Flag football is part of the NFL’s megalomania. The NFL wants active players to play at Los Angeles, particularly for the U.S. team.

That’s incredibly short-sighted for two reasons:

• The rules of flag football are very different. So are the players’ roles. It’s far removed from NFL-style football. The offense often moves the ball around like the Harlem Globetrotters. The nominal QB can wind up as a receiver. On defense, a blitzer must raise his hand and identity himself.

• The U.S. already has a national team for flag football. It’s won the last five world championships. The U.S. routed Austria, 52-21, in the 2024 championship game.

The current U.S. players are experienced winners who have flag football down to a science.

Is the objective to get a gold medal, or to risk that by way of getting the NFL exposure it doesn’t really need?

But the NFL doesn’t know the meaning of “enough.” The preferred word is “more.”

ESPN’s Bill Barnwell suggested having the U.S. flag football team play the NFL’s team with the winners representing the U.S. at Los Angeles.

That’s made-for-TV gold. A ratings juggernaut. I’d watch it.

But the NFL wouldn’t risk that.

The NFL doesn’t have to beat the flag football guys. Not when the NFL would probably lose. Not when the NFL can just bully the flag football guys out of the picture with the approval of NBC, the Los Angeles Summer Games’ televising network.

That’s what the NFL does. It bullies. Constantly.

Darrell Doucette has quarterbacked the U.S. flag football team to the last two world championships. He spoke out on behalf of himself and his teammates.

“This is a sport that we’ve played for a long time,” Doucette said. “We feel we’re the best at it and we don’t need other guys.”

Bro meathead Travis Kelce immediately issued the predictable response: “Is this guy afraid of competition? Have a tryout and the best players make the team.”

OK, but who picks the team?

My hunch would be the NFL and NBC.

Bro meathead brother Jason Kelce chimed in, saying, “I don’t know anything about flag football, but I feel very confident (that the current U.S. players) aren’t the best.”

Based on what? You know that how? Did you watch tape of Doucette? How would either Kelce have a remote clue?

The NFL should just get out of the way on this. It is such a petty hill to die on, to shove aside a sport’s proven best for the sake of more, more, more. (But that’s what they said about Andrea True.)

At the very least, play that game: NFL vs. the U.S. flag football team.

Then let the result stand. If the flag football guys win, they play at the Olympics. Don’t shoehorn in any NFL players.

I’d be rooting for the flag football guys.

I’d also be rooting for an NFL player to shred his knee ligaments by way of driving home just how farcical this is.

I do think Pat McAfee should punt. (Do they punt in flag football?)