You'd be forgiven for checking out of football news over the last few weeks. NFL free agency has significantly quieted down and the NFL Draft is still 3+ weeks away. There's a lull going on.

For those that have remained locked in, you were probably aware of the Fanatics Flag Football Classic because of one particular highlight that has gone viral:

Yup, that is maybe the greatest QB of all time (Tom Brady) juking a pass rusher and rifling a throw into the end zone for a touchdown. It's a fun highlight! It's also missing a ton of context.

NBA players and NHL players get to play for country in the Olympics. MLB players now have their own event, the World Baseball Classic, where they can don the colors of their home country and play for pride. Soccer players, no matter the league, dream of winning a World Cup some day.

This has probably left some NFL players feeling left out. Despite the league's best efforts, "American football" is still very much an American game. 

That is probably why, when it was announced that Flag Football would be a new competitive event added to the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, a number of NFL players pushed the league to allow them to participate and won. This was going to be their chance to play for country.

The thing is, there is already a Team USA for flag football. Those players have competed in the sport for years, traveling the world but not making enough money to quit their day jobs, and they were pretty pissed off at the idea that their hard-earned glory would be handed to NFL players that compete in a different version of the sport.

That led to....

I'm going to skip right past the icky business side of this event and focus on the idea of it, which worked out pretty great.

Competing at LAFC's BMO Stadium, which is where the Olympics flag football events will take place, the Fanatics Flag Football Classic was created to answer the question:

Who should represent America at the Olympics: The flag football players or the NFL players?

There were three rosters put together. First, the flag football players made up "Team USA". You don't know these guys but they have spent years, if not decades, putting their blood, sweat and tears into the sport to get to this point. They were coached by their normal coach, Jorge Cascudo.

NFL players were split into two other teams.

First, "Founders FFC" was mostly a collection of active NFL players plus two retired NFL players (Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski) and former boxer Terence Crawford. Why a boxer? Who knows? Sean Payton signed up to be the coach of this team.

"Wildcats FFC" also included active NFL players, retired NFL players, and a couple of social media influencers (Logan Paul & iShowSpeed). Why social media influencers? Probably to juice the TV ratings. Kyle Shanahan being this team's coach probably wasn't going to bring in a large viewing audience.

Derwin James, who was scheduled to be on the Wildcats roster, pulled out just days before with an undisclosed "minor injury". We'll come back to him in a moment.

The three teams were scheduled to play a tournament against each other to figure out who should represent the host country in flag football in the 2028 Summer Olympics in LA.

Guess what happened.

Despite the Tom Brady highlight that is being shared by every person that has ever watched an NFL game, the Fanatics Flag Football Classic was absolutely dominated....by the flag football players.

In game 1, Team USA beat the Wildcats 39-14. In game 2, they beat Tom Brady's Founders 43-16. And, because there had to be a championship game to determine the tournament's official winner, Team USA went up against Wildcats FFC again and beat them 24-14.

It was domination by the flag football players, who predicted as much and repeatedly said before the tournament that flag football and tackle football are very different things. It was "humbling" for the NFL players.

Los Angeles Chargers DB Derwin James, the same one who dropped out of the event with an undisclosed mystery injury, was interviewed by TMZ in the days following the event.

James bluntly stated that he didn't think active NFL players should participate in the 2028 Olympics, and made the obvious case that the flag football players should be the ones representing Team USA:

"I say the next Olympics," James Jr. said, "give them boys this one 'cause I feel they're more prepared, they're more skilled. I mean, you seen the formations they was running out there, it was crazy!"

He went on to say that retired players are free to do whatever they want but that the injury risk was too high for others.

"Give the NFL players, you know, that's kinda retired, already done playing, kind of on the backend, because I feel like a lot of those movements is a lot of risk on your joints, too."

"I mean, do you want your receiver one out there or your number one corner?!"

Considering James is the Chargers' most important player in the defensive backfield, if not the entire defense itself, you could see how he might be talking about himself here.

Personally, I'm glad things happened the way they did. NFL players got their shot to prove they belonged and the flag football players got their chance to prove they were right, which they were. 

Still, some NFL players can't help but dream about winning a gold medal while representing their country. It sounds like Joe Burrow is still interested in being a part of Team USA's roster for flag football in two years, but I'm willing to bet he gets talked out of it sometime between now and then.