World flag football champ ready to fight NFL talents for US Olympics spot

DU.S. national flag football quarterback Arrell “Housh” Doucette couldn’t help but be offended by the hype video that circulated online shortly after the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris ended.

The clamp showed NFL superstar quarterback Jalen Hurts lighting a football on fire, tossing it into the torch hanging above the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and lighting the Olympic flame. Then the Philadelphia Eagles face turned, stared into the camera and dryly said, “It’s our turn,” before the caption reminded viewers that men’s and women’s flag football — a younger cousin to the tackle format in which Hurts plies his trade — would make its debut on the Olympic program for the 2028 LA Games.

Sitting in a coffee shop near his hometown of New Orleans recently, Doucette said the only way he could interpret the video was to threaten his job. Hurts had apparently declared his intention to signal for Team USA — the reigning world champions in flag football — at the upcoming summer Games.

But Doucette made it clear that he had no intention of simply giving up the place he had earned for himself, in relative (but diminishing) anonymity, in an arguably different version of football that he had spent years spreading to other countries.

“I think it’s disrespectful that they automatically assume that they can make the Olympic team just because of who they are — they didn’t help grow this sport to get to the Olympics,” Doucette said. “Give the guys that helped this sport get to where it is today their respect.”

Doucette says he can tolerate NFL headliners trying to steal roster spots from him and his brethren, whose dreams of gold medals burn just as bright. He just wants to make sure Hurts and his ilk know that the flag football faithful aren’t going down without a fight.

“We just don’t think they can walk out on the field and make the Olympic team because of the name, right?” he said. “They still have to go out there and compete.”

Doucette’s comments are among the first to question the idea of ​​a Dream Team for Flag’s NFL debut, similar to the team of NBA legends that first played at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.

Hurts isn’t the only big arm throwing his helmet into the ring. In an episode of the training camp docuseries Hard Knocks , Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, the top draft pick in April, expressed his desire to pitch for Team USA in L.A. — the same city where he won the Heisman Trophy for college football’s most outstanding player while at Southern California.

A few weeks before the opening ceremonies in Paris, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow appeared on the Pardon My Take podcast and fantasized about capturing flag football gold alongside Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson, his friends and star NFL wide receivers. “I really want to play for the Olympic flag football team,” Burrow said, echoing similar comments from MVP quarterback Patrick Mahomes and receiving yards leader Tyreek Hill. “I think that would be really cool.”

Doucette admits that, under different circumstances, he would be all for an all-star team with Burrow as captain. Like most everyone else in New Orleans, he was thrilled to watch Burrow, Jefferson and Chase lead the Louisiana State University football team to the national collegiate championship in 2019. He even lives near the high school where Chase began making a name for himself on the tackle football gridiron.

However, Doucette is confident that he, and other players around the world, can compete with the best in the NFL.

Whether he was putting the ball away to run or passing it, Doucette quarterbacked the U.S. to the 2021 World Cup in Jerusalem, where the Americans defeated Mexico 44-41 in the final. He helped the national team to a gold medal at the 2022 World Games in Birmingham, Alabama. And in the summer of 2023, he was named the team’s most valuable player as the U.S. went 7-0 to win the Americas Continental Championship in Charlotte, North Carolina.

He and the US will travel to Lahti, Finland, to defend their country. world championship against 31 teams from six continents during a four-day tournament that started on August 27.

But before all that, Doucette achieved perhaps the most famous victory of his career. In 2018, he led a championship-winning amateur team that defeated — on national television — a team made up of former NFL players.

The team of ex-pros featured Pro Bowl running back Justin Forsett and former Seattle Seahawks quarterback Seneca Wallace. Their coach was four-time Olympic gold medalist sprinter Michael Johnson. And they lost by 20 points to a Doucette-led team that stunned the pros not only with speed but with some of the less-than-standard tackle moves: constant playfakes, laterals, passes disguised as runs—even a scoring, 100-yard interception return.

The victory resulted in a $1 million prize for Doucette and his compatriots, who called themselves Team Fighting Cancer to honor their loved ones battling the disease.

Reflect on that dayAccording to Doucette, this was a clear example of how different the 11-on-11 situation with helmets and pads is from the seven-on-seven situation, where defenders try to stop ball carriers by grabbing the flagsticks near their hips.

“Some of the things they do in the NFL that they call trick plays? We’re used to seeing them every day,” said Doucette, whose nickname Housh is derived from his resemblance to former NFL player TJ Houshmandzadeh.

Doucette, 35, acknowledged that his path to the national team was unconventional. The son and namesake of a former New Orleans police detective, familiar to fans of the true crime docuseries The First 48, Sweet As a boy he participated in athletics and football.

One of his first competitive successes was winning a state championship in bowling. And he didn’t play tackle football at the college or professional level because, at 5ft, 7in, he’s smaller than the prototype for his preferred position, quarterback.

His passion for flag football grew out of an intramural league at Xavier University in New Orleans, where he was a student. And since then, he has not only proven himself skilled enough to be selected as a “core” player for the professional men’s team American Flag Football Competition division provisionally started in 2025 with teams in Dallas, Nashville, Boston and Las Vegas.

He has also given clinics and coached for other flag enthusiasts abroad, including in China and Mexico. Their second-place team hopes to beat him in Finland.

Doucette’s performances on the field, but also those of women’s sensations Diana Bloem from Mexico and Vanita Krouch of the US, have provided a corresponding boost in terms of social media influence and followers.

So much so that Doucette hinted at plans to introduce a line of Housh merchandise, particularly if the world championships go down well with the U.S.

He senses a market for it in the vibrant flag football scene he’s part of. But he also knows that breaking through at the Olympics – in front of a global audience – could lead to a new football stardom he can’t yet imagine.

Doucette made it clear that he doesn’t feel entitled to that step up. He does, however, believe – firmly – that he deserves the chance to fight for those aspirations against all comers, including those with NFL pedigree.

“It’s not like we need these guys,” Doucette said of the competition’s Olympic hopefuls. “Because we’re already great with who we have.”