PHOENIX — Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton on Tuesday described his recent “humbling” experience as a flag football coach by comparing the role to that of an incompetent villain in the “Home Alone” movies.
“You’re getting hit in the head with the iron and tripping over the garden hose,” Payton said, likening his attempts to lead a team of pros against the USA Football Team at the Fanatics flag showcase in Los Angeles earlier this month to the bumbling “Wet Bandits” criminals who young Kevin McCallister outwitted. “It would be easy to say we didn’t take it seriously, but I spent some time on that. It was kind of humbling.”
The teams featuring NFL players coached by Payton and the San Francisco 49ers’ Kyle Shanahan were dominated in three combined games by Team USA, whose superior knowledge of the game’s rules and nuances was evident during the event at BMO Stadium. The event created intrigue, in part, because flag football will be played for the first time at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and NFL clubs last May approved a resolution that permits the league’s players to participate in the Games.
Payton, though, doesn’t anticipate NFL players ultimately being part of a team that competes for a gold medal during the inaugural Olympic tournament.
“It’s an entirely different game,” Payton, who coached a team quarterbacked by Tom Brady and Jalen Hurts, said at the NFL league meeting Tuesday. “But, look, it was kind of cool to be around those guys. That was a big deal. I think when this first was announced, there was this feeling that there would be 10 NFL players on that roster. I’ll be surprised if there’s one.
“I think we have plenty of players who can acclimate, but it’s going to take a month or two, and if you’re one of those players, do you have a month or two? If you’re training for that, you’re not training, you know, (for the NFL season).”
Shanahan on Monday said the flag football experience was “not what I expected.”
“I thought it was more like a seven-on-seven tournament,” Shanahan said Monday. “Then, when I turned on that tape and watched the USA team, I knew we were in trouble — big time. We’d have to be much more strategic to compete with those guys. We’d need to draft all corners and receivers, all little corners and receivers. … It’s something we could be good at, but we can’t just show up and do it. We’d have to really look at it.”
Even if NFL players aren’t ultimately a part of the Olympic flag football team a little more than two years from now, Payton came away with a positive view of the sport.
“I thought it was great for our international team and, more importantly, great for the women’s side of it. There’s an avenue where they can play football. Talking with one of the women on the international team for the U.S., and where does the female team recruit players? They’re looking at NCAA basketball, and they’re finding point guards who maybe aren’t tall enough to play further. She was a college guard, and everything is start, stop, quick. I think it’s in a good spot.”
— The Athletic’s Matt Barrows contributed to this story.