TMZSports.com
A current flag football star quarterback believes he is better suited to lead Team USA at the 2028 Olympics than Patrick Mahomes … and he tells TMZ Sports The only way he will change his mind is if the three-time Super Bowl winner proves it to him on the field.
The name of the confident signaler is Darrell “Housh” Doucette … a 35-year-old right-hander who helped lead the U.S. national flag football team to gold at the 2022 World Games.
If his name sounds familiar, it’s because he made national headlines earlier this week – when he claimed it was “disrespectful“that many NFL stars currently believe they can displace some flag football players and compete for gold on their own at the Los Angeles Games in four years.
Doucette told us in an interview Tuesday that he thought his words had been somewhat misunderstood … and that he simply wanted NFL players to have to go through auditions and earn their spot on the flag lists — like he did.
However, he also said he was sure he was better suited to lead the U.S. national team in 1928 than Mahomes.
“At the end of the day,” Doucette told us, “I feel like I’m better than Patrick Mahomes because of my game IQ.”
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He later added in a text message: “I’m not saying I’m a better player overall, but until he steps into a 5v5 flag field, I’m going to think that way until proven otherwise! I’m a competitor and I need to be proven wrong.”
While it may sound crazy, just watch some of Doucette’s highlights… it’s clear that the flag game is definitely different from the one Mahomes plays on Sundays.
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The field is shorter and narrower… and the competition is only 5 on 5. There’s also almost no physical combat, according to Housh – and it takes special skills to know how to protect flags from being pulled away.
“It’s a completely different game,” he said.
Doucette is so convinced of this – he told us he believes if a team full of NFL stars played against his flag team, the NFL players would lose.
Now, Doucette says that everything could change if the guys took it seriously and worked their asses off – but he makes it clear that he and his teammates aren’t giving up potential spots on the Olympic squad without a fight, either way.
