Flag football is safe enough for NFL players when the NFL can directly profit from it. When NFL players want to play flag football as members of the U.S. Olympic team, there is a good chance that it will be a great deal of risk.
Comments Monday from NFL Executive Vice President Jeff Miller regarding the fact that the NFL “Working…activelyChief Medical Officer Allen Sills’ comments on potential safety issues surrounding football were preceded by science, regarding the participation of its players in the 2028 Olympic Games.
As Ben Fisher pointed out, Sports Business Magazine“One of the interesting opportunities is to better understand the problem of injury risk in football with science,” Sills said. “Obviously that’s something that hasn’t really been studied, and I think that plays into this discussion about who plays and how. So I think that’s work that needs to be done.”
The fact that the NFL holds a football game every year makes the league’s previous failure to consider the risks all the more bizarre. The reality is that in the end, a (theoretically) frictionless version of football will be seen as as safe as the league wants it to be.
If the NFL believes that having its players in the Olympics will help advance its ambitions for global dominance, it will want to. The question now is whether at least 24 owners will agree to any proposed terms.
This is what it will come down to. Will enough club owners be willing to put the public interest above the prospect of losing a key player to a serious injury, perhaps for the entire season?
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