Shedeur Sanders Explains Why He Has No Interest In Playing Olympic Flag Football

Watching the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris had me fired up about the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, which will feature the Olympics debut of flag football.

I think we all eagerly await the day that the Team USA flag football roster gets announced, but it sounds like one guy we can count on not making an Olympic appearance is Colorado Buffaloes quarterback Shedeur Sanders.

I'm sure the flag football powers that be will be looking for a mobile quarterback to add to the roster, and while Sanders would fit that bill, he's not interested.

"No. Cause, bruh, you could get injured," Sanders said on his 2Legendary podcast, per 247Sports. "I don't like that bro. And you just had a full season."

Sanders raises a point that could absolutely derail the hope of seeing a roster of NFL players up against the best the world of flag football has to offer.

Don't expect to see Shedeur Sanders on the US flag football team at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. (Photo by Dustin Bradford/Getty Images)

If you're an NFL team paying tens of millions of dollars for a franchise quarterback, are you really going to want to let him compete at the Olympics on the off chance he tweaks an ankle diving for a first down in the quarterfinals against the Dutch?

I don't think an team would want that, because even though flag football has less contact associated with it, think how many non-contact injuries we see each season in the NFL. All of those would be possible in flag football.

Plus, I'm still curious as to whether or not NFL players are the best option for the Olympic roster. I think the assumption is that they would, but high-level flag football players are only playing flag football and know the ins and outs of it — specifically the little quirks that make it different from regular football — better than NFL players would.

I don't know, but it's interesting to hear Sanders say he wants no part of it years before the roster is cobbled together.