LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — NFL players are going to get the chance to try out for the Olympic flag football team, but that doesn’t mean they are guaranteed a spot on the LA28 roster.
Athletically, they’ll be fine, but the transition still may not be as easy and simple as you think.
“They are two completely different games,” Amber Clark-Robinson said. “Yes, you're still playing football, but the skill level is a little different — just the attributes that you need to have are going to be a little bit different. You can't just throw your body weight around. You're going to have to be in control. They're very nitpicky about how they call contact at IFAF (International Federation of American Football).”
Clark-Robinson, who is entering her third season as the University of Saint Mary women’s flag football coach, played four seasons for the Atlanta Steam, a women’s tackle football team in the Legends Football League.
After the league ceased operations for two years around the COVID-19 pandemic, Clark-Robinson transitioned to flag football. She made the USA Football Women’s Flag Football National Team for the third consecutive year after tryouts last weekend in North Carolina.
“I definitely get nervous every time (we have tryouts) just because the talent grows and the talent pool is just getting bigger and bigger each year,” she said. “There's just so much tough competition to go against.”
Clark-Robinson has harbored Olympic dreams throughout her life, so she gets why NFL players share the same dream.
“That's always been the goal — whether it was in basketball, track, volleyball, whatever sport I was playing,” Clark-Robinson said. “When you're playing a sport, that (the Olympics) is the best of the best, that's the best of the competition in the whole entire world, so you want to be able to compete with that.”
She said NFL players shouldn’t take the flag game for granted. Understanding the differences and nuances from the tackle game will be key to a successful — possible gold-medal-winning — transition.
“If they take it seriously and they study and they work at it, I think they have a really good chance at making it,” Clark-Robinson said.
Of course, USA Football already has a dominant national team filled with Olympic hopefuls, who won’t simply give up their dream for NFL players.
“I definitely think the boys are up for it — for the competition and for the challenge,” Clark-Robinson said. “And I think USA Football has a great plan in place to make sure that they're scouting to put the best of the best on the team.”
Flag football makes its Olympic debut at the Los Angeles Games in 2028.
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said he’d love the chance to play in the Olympics, but Clark-Robinson singled out a different MVP QB as her choice among NFL stars.
“I don't know about catching a touchdown, but I think I would be very excited to see Lamar Jackson in the backfield, just because he's so shifty,” she said. “He already does it a lot on NFL players. I would love to see his agility when it comes to flag football.”
Ottawa University star Addie Orsborn, who recently helped OU win a fifth straight NAIA flag football championship, also played on the USA Football national team last summer and made the team again in 2025.
The national team heads to China in August for the World Games and will play in the IFAF Americas Flag 2025 Continental Championship next September in Panama.
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