Flag football is safe enough for NFL players when the NFL can directly profit from it. When NFL players want to play flag football as members of the U.S. Olympic team, there’s a chance it will entail too much risk.
Monday’s comments from NFL executive V.P. Jeff Miller regarding the fact that the NFL is “working . . . actively” on getting its players in the 2028 Olympics were preceded by remarks from chief medical officer Allen Sills regarding the potential safety issues related to flag football.
As noted by Ben Fischer of Sports Business Journal, Sills said this: “One of the intriguing opportunities is to better understand the injury risk issue with flag football. That’s something that obviously hasn’t really been studied, and I think it plays into this discussion about who plays and how. So I think that is work to be done.”
The fact that the NFL stages a flag football game every year makes the league’s previous failure to study the risks odd. The reality is that, in the end, the no-contact (in theory) version of football will be deemed as safe as the league wants it to be.
If the NFL believes having NFL players in the Olympics will assist the league’s aspirations for global domination, the NFL will want it. The question is whether at least 24 owners will agree with whatever terms are proposed.
That’s what it will come down to. Will enough owners be willing to put the greater good over the possibility that they’ll lose a key player to a key injury, possibly for the season?