Two years ago, flag-football star Darrell “Housh” Doucette said he’d be a better option for the Olympics than Patrick Mahomes. Doucette recently reflected on those remarks in an appearance on In The Bayou With Tyrann Mathieu. And added to them.
Asked how many NFL players could make the U.S. men’s Olympic flag-football team, Doucette said, “Realistically? One or two.”
As Doucette explained it, the question becomes getting a player who has the skills that translate to the flag game, along with enough name recognition to give them one of 10 available roster spots.
The other reality, as the professional players who participated in the Fanatics Flag Football Classic in March learned, is that it takes a commitment to learning and understanding the nuances of the flag game. Will NFL players want to give up the time when they’re not training for their primary craft to learn how to properly play flag football? Will NFL players skip voluntary workouts to practice flag football?
As to Doucette’s comments about Mahomes from 2024, Doucette said he didn’t know his comments to TMZ were being recorded for on-the-record use.
“I didn’t even know I was being recorded,” Doucette said. “I was just — I had a trust factor where somebody I knew was like, ‘Hey, somebody from TMZ, my boy from TMZ, wants to holler at you.’ Just like, and I was like, ‘All right, cool.’ So then he texted me, he’s like, ‘Hey, bro, let’s get on a Zoom call real quick.’
“So we [were] just talking. And my lesson learned was, ‘Are we going on a record or off the record?’ And that was my moment when I learned that. But he never was like, ‘OK, we on the record.’ He just recorded the whole conversation. So when he asked me, ‘Do you feel like’ — because we going through all the things. I’m like, ‘Yeah, because I know the game.’ It’s not about his ability. I know the game, I understand everything about this game, and that was why I said what I said, it wasn’t about me actually, like, making better throws” than Mahomes.
Doucette said he planned to say a few things about the blowback he received after the U.S. men’s national team beat teams consisting of NFL players in March. Doucette changed his mind because the NFL players treated the flag players like “royalty.”
“They showed me nothing but love, so I’ve got to give it back to them,” Doucette said.
Doucette still has a bone to pick with retired NFL players who have been chirping, like LeSean McCoy. And Doucette would love to arrange a 35-and-older competition between flag players and former NFL players.
That likely won’t happen. Still, former NFL players (like McCoy) are free to try out for the U.S. men’s national flag football team. If they think they can do it better than the current flag football players are doing it, they should welcome the chance to prove it.
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