Team USA's choice for Olympic flag football is obvious

It's funny that Tom Brady, of all people, got trounced in flag football on the weekend.

The guy waltzed from an incredible NFL playing career straight into two jobs - television broadcasting and team ownership - for which he had no experience or preparation, but he did seem to have all the required skills to, you know, play football.

And yet Brady was about as good at flag football as he was at his early forays into his post-playing gigs: not very good at all.

His team got blown out twice in an exhibition pitting the USA's national flag football team - which will theoretically represent the country when the sport makes its Olympic debut in Los Angeles in two years - against a pair of teams of current and former NFL stars and some random celebrities.

Brady was also a co-promoter of the event, which was moved from Saudi Arabia to Los Angeles as a result of the war with Iran. He admitted afterward that the flag football specialists were miles ahead of their NFL counterparts.

"Things happen pretty quick out there, and those guys are super shifty," Brady said. "Just in terms of strategy, we're probably way behind."

The ease with which Team USA dispatched its opponents has produced a debate over who should represent the United States at LA28: the flag football specialists, or a parachuted-in crop of NFL players. That is, do you want players who are dedicated to this very specific football discipline, or do you want the best, most famous football players in the world?

Do you want Darrell "Housh" Doucette, the MVP of the exhibition games, to quarterback Team USA, or do you want Josh Allen?

It probably shouldn't even be a debate. As demonstrated quite convincingly in Los Angeles, people who spend their professional lives playing flag football are much better at it than interlopers. There are enough differences between flag football and the NFL game - starting with the need to grab a flag from an opponent instead of tackling them - to prevent the skills from being perfectly transferable.

Would Connor McDavid be as good at ball hockey as he is at ice hockey? Would Shohei Ohtani be quite so dominant at the plate in fast-pitch softball?

It's not unfair to suggest either one might struggle with some of the adjustments. But given practice time, they'd probably be as good as anyone in the world at their new sport.

This is also true of NFL stars. A team with, say, Bijan Robinson, Puka Nacua, and Lamar Jackson on it would be pretty terrifying once they figured out the nuances of flag football.

That raises a question that's harder to answer: Would any of today's NFL players actually invest the time to become elite flag football athletes? There are only so many days in the offseason, and most of them are earmarked for recovery and training. Jayden Daniels could undoubtedly become a tremendous flag football player if he put in the effort, but he's kind of busy being the quarterback of the Washington Commanders. The same goes for any NFL player: Christian Gonzalez would be incredible at flag football, but the New England Patriots wouldn't be thrilled if he spent his offseason learning how to not tackle.

Given all that, the best course of action is obviously to leave Team USA in the hands of the guys already playing for Team USA and watch them win gold.

But there's one more question: Why is flag football even in the Olympics? Part of the answer is because the NFL wants it to be there; anyone who's watched the NFL Network over the past year has seen how badly the league wants flag football to be an extension of its brand. It's a safer version of the sport, and much like the NFL's attempts to play games all over the world, it's an exercise in spreading the gospel of football in hopes of expanding the NFL's reach.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell might very much want to put his league's stars on the Olympic stage, in other words.

Still, the NFL should sit this one out. Leave flag football to the specialists. If Christian McCaffrey wants a shot at an Olympic medal, tell him to learn to hurdle.

The NFL already dominates the sports landscape in North America, routinely grabbing the biggest television audiences for something like 45 of the top 50 broadcasts. The only other thing that can elbow its way in there is the Olympics. Does the NFL really need to take that over too?

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.