He just wants to make certain Hurts and his ilk know that the flag football stalwarts aren’t going down without a fight.
“I really want to play for the Olympic flag football team,” Burrow said, echoing similar remarks from the MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes as well as receiving-yards leader Tyreek Hill.
It was the US’s fourth consecutive world flag football title.
His passion for flag football grew out of an intramural league at New Orleans’s Xavier University, where he studied.
He senses a market for it among the vibrant flag football scene to which he has belonged.
Soon after the 2024 Summer Olympics concluded in Paris, Darrell “Housh” Doucette, the quarterback for the United States national flag football team, couldn’t help but take offense at the hype video that was making the rounds on the internet.
In the video, NFL quarterback Jalen Hurts, a superstar, was seen setting a football on fire, throwing it into the torch that loomed over the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and starting Olympic flames. Next, the Philadelphia Eagles’ face turned around, looked directly into the camera, and deadpanned, “It’s our turn.” Text then informed viewers that flag football, a sport that is younger than tackle football and is played by players like Hurts, will be added to the Olympic schedule for the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
When Doucette was recently sitting in a coffee shop outside of his hometown of New Orleans, he claimed that the only way he could interpret the video was as a danger to his career. Hurts appeared to have stated that he would lead the USA flag football team—the reigning world champions—into the next summer Games.
However, Doucette made it clear that he had no intention of merely giving up the position he has earned for himself in a football game that is clearly different from the one he has spent years spreading to other nations, in relative (but waning) anonymity.
“They didn’t help grow this game to get to the Olympics, so I think it’s disrespectful that they just automatically assume that they can just join the Olympic team because of who they are,” Doucette said. Respect should be shown to the individuals who contributed to the success of this game. “.
Doucette says he’s willing to put up with NFL stars trying to take his and his brothers’ spots on the roster—dreams of gold medal glory that burn just as brightly. He simply wants Hurts and his kind to know that the flag football legends won’t go down without a fight.
He remarked, “We just don’t think they’re going to be able to walk on the field and make the Olympic team because of the name.”. “They still need to compete outside. “.
The notion that the NFL would field a Dream Team for flag’s inaugural season, similar to the group of NBA legends who made their debut at the 1992 Barcelona Games, was first mooted by Doucette’s comments.
Big Arms have thrown their helmets into the ring before, not just Hurts. Caleb Williams, the top pick in the April draft and quarterback for the Chicago Bears, stated on an episode of the training camp documentary series Hard Knocks that he would like to play quarterback for Team USA in Los Angeles, the same city in which he won the Heisman Trophy as the best college football player while attending Southern California.
Joe Burrow, the quarterback for the Cincinnati Bengals, dreamed of winning flag football gold with his friends, Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson, who are both prominent NFL wide receivers, during an interview on the Pardon My Take podcast a few weeks prior to the opening ceremony in Paris. Burrow echoed MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes and receiving yards leader Tyreek Hill when he said, “I really want to play for the Olympic flag football team.”. I believe that would be awesome. “.
Doucette acknowledges that he would support an all-star team led by Burrow in different situations. He was as excited as almost everyone else in New Orleans to see Burrow, Jefferson, and Chase take Louisiana State University’s football team to the 2019 college national championship. He even resides in the same neighborhood as the high school where Chase first gained notoriety on the tackle football field.
However, Doucette is certain that he and similar players worldwide are more than capable of competing with the NFL’s top players.
As the US defeated Mexico 44–41 in the championship game to win the 2021 world championship in Jerusalem, Doucette made a crucial contribution by tucking the ball to run it himself, passing it, or catching it. The US had won the world flag football championship four times in a row.
Then, in Birmingham, Alabama, for the 2022 World Games, Doucette quarterbacked the country’s team to gold. Also, he was named the Americas Continental championship’s most valuable player in the summer of 2023 when the US defeated all other teams 7-0 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
He and the US are set to go to Lahti, Finland, on August 27 to play in a four-day tournament against 31 teams from six continents in an attempt to defend their worldtitle.
However, Doucette won what was arguably the most well-known match of his career before all of that. He led a championship-winning amateur team in 2018 that defeated an NFL players-only team on national television.
Pro Bowl running back Justin Forsett and former Seattle Seahawks quarterback Seneca Wallace were on the group of former professionals. The four-time Olympic gold medallist sprinter Michael Johnson served as their coach. The team led by Doucette outscored them by 20 points, utilizing unconventional techniques such as double passes, lateral passes, sly hip movements, and throws that were disguised as runs in addition to their superior speed.
Doucette was playing defense when he stopped a receiver on a long catch and run that appeared to be an easy score four yards from the goal line in a moment that will never be forgotten. The play was capped off by a spectacular downfield lateral and backflip across the goal line by Doucette’s team, who then intercepted Wallace and ran the ball back for a 100-yard score.
Doucette’s team, which went by the name Team Fighting Cancer in memory of loved ones who were battling the disease, won a $1 million prize for their victory.
Doucette said that, looking back, that day’s play was perhaps the best example of how the pads-and-helmets 11-on-11 tackle configuration differs from the seven-on-seven version, in which defenders attempt to stop ball carriers by snatching flag strips at their hips.
Doucette, whose moniker Housh comes from his likeness to former NFL player TJ Houshmandzadeh, said, “Some of the things that they do in the NFL that they call trick plays? We’re accustomed to seeing them on an everyday basis.”.
The 35-year-old Doucette admitted that his route to the national team was not the usual one. Growing up, Doucette ran track and played football. He is the son and namesake of a former New Orleans police homicide detective who is well-known to viewers of the true crime series The First 48.
Bowling state championships were among his first competitive achievements. Furthermore, he chose not to play tackle football in college or the NFL since, at 5 feet 7 inches, he is shorter than the ideal quarterback.
At Xavier University in New Orleans, where he was a student, there was an intramural flag football league that gave rise to his passion for the game. Since then, he has demonstrated his ability to the point where teams in Dallas, Nashville, Boston, and Las Vegas have selected him as a “core” player for the professional men’s American Flag Football League, which is scheduled to begin play in 2025.
Along with coaching and leading clinics for fellow flag enthusiasts, he has also traveled to China and Mexico, whose second-ranked squad is attempting to upset him in Finland.
Comparable gains in social media influence and followers have resulted from Doucette’s on-field exploits as well as those of Mexican women’s sensation Diana Flores and American women’s sensation Vanita Krouch.
So much so that, should the US win the world championships, Doucette made hints about intentions to introduce a line of apparel bearing the Housh brand.
Among the active flag football scene, to which he has belonged, he perceives a market for it. He is aware, though, that becoming well-known at an Olympics in front of a large, mainstream audience could lead to a new level of football stardom that he is still unable to comprehend.
Doucette made it apparent that he doesn’t believe he deserves that advancement. But he really does think, really believes, that he should have the opportunity to compete for those goals against everyone, even NFL players.
Doucette stated of the league’s Olympic aspirants, “It’s not that we need these guys.”. Considering that we already have a great team. “.
