Since 2017, the Kansas City Chiefs have been the most dominant team in the National Football League. In the last seven seasons, the Chiefs have won seven ACF West titles, four AFC Conference titles, and three Super Bowls.
While there are a number of things that it takes to have sustained success in the NFL, the biggest reason for the Chiefs recent run of titles has been Patrick Mahomes.
The No. 10 pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, Mahomes has already become one of the most decorated quarterbacks in league history, and he’s only 28 years old. Mahomes is, without a doubt, one of the faces of the NFL, but there are those out there who doubt him.
Typically, the argument is that players like Joe Burrow or Josh Allen might have something to say about who the top quarterback in the world is, but today, we leave the NFL for a moment a jump over to the United States Flag Football Team.
Flag football will make its debut as an Olympic sport in the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, and many would assume that the nation’s best football players — which are found in the NFL — would be shoo-in’s to represent the United States in this new venture.
However, US Flag Football QB Darrell Doucette says people shouldn’t be so quick to hand the ball to the guys in the NFL. In fact, Doucette believes he’s a better fit to lead the US in this version of football than the Chiefs’ superstar signal-caller is.
In a recent video with TMZ Sports, Doucette says he’s “better than Patrick Mahomes” because of his IQ of the game.
“I’m not hiding from the competition, none of my teammates nor anybody else in the flag football world are hiding from the competition,” Doucette said. “But at the end of the day, I feel like I’m better than Patrick Mahomes because of my IQ of the game. I know he’s right now the best in the league, I know he’s more accurate, I know he has all these intangibles, but when it comes to flag football, I feel like I know more than him.”
Now, Doucette — who has led the US to the 2021 World Championship, a Gold Medal in the 2022 World Games, and an Americas Continental Championship in 2023 — did say that if given the time and ability to learn the game, Mahomes “should be better” than him. After all, Mahomes is an elite athlete.
But what Doucette doesn’t want to get twisted is this — the NFL’s top athletes are more than welcome to come and try out, but they shouldn’t just be given the rights to be on the team because people know who they are.
“I love the fact that [NFL players] want to play and that they want to come out and compete, but at the end of the day, we want the same process,” continued Doucette. “We have to try out, and so do they. I don’t want [it] to be like, they’re entitled because of their names to be able to just automatically be on the team, and that’s what it sounds like from the flag football world… We don’t want to be forgotten about because we are the ones that helped this game get to where it’s at.”
