About eight years ago, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones sat on the sofa in a hotel room in California, with the concept of Olympic flag football on his tongue, just not found.

In the summer of 2017, Jones discussed the growth of the NFL as a global consumer sport in a one-to-one interview with Yahoo Sports, when the undeveloped market was cultivated. At the time, the league was positioning itself to expand internationally in the UK, continental Europe, Canada and Mexico, with the ultimate goal of creating the 33rd NFL team through international competitions in the hopes of finally being able to finally compete in the U.S. games all season outside each season.

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Jones and his NFL owners believe this can be achieved over decades of leap forward and measured purposes. But Jones still has a hanging thread that cannot stop thinking. Specifically, how to get NFL traction in a place that is just strange. The problem is that people were concentrated in China as early as 2017 - mainly because the Premier League and the NBA have nurtured hundreds of millions of potential fans in the country, and the NFL can only dream of achieving it.

"I don't have a good answer to China. It's daunting," Jones said in 2017.

"The numbers already exist (attract the NFL). But what is our challenge - whether it's London or Mexico City, I think it's the main area of ​​expansion - our real challenge is how to whip things and see how Shanghai wants to beat Beijing. Can it infuriate them, can they compete for this competition? If you have a culture that can create this, then we have the potential."

Later in the interview, Jones speculated that the answer might not be the NFL approach at all. Playing NFL games alone in the country is not enough to sow sustainable passion. Perhaps what is needed is to find a way to introduce China to football in the simplest, most organic way.

"It might give people a reason to catch football for the first time and go out and play it," he said. "It's really not easy."

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Jones means a single idea, a wall between the real global interest in the NFL and the active targeting international traction currently in existence: making people interested in the game itself or some version—not making people particularly interested in the NFL.

Enter the grand stage of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Arguably, this is the best answer that the NFL has ever had to inspire the world to play football and play football - especially if some people pick up football for their country and also happen to be NFL players.

That's the danger of the NFL Spring Conference in Minneapolis next week, when owners will consider a recommendation that allows league players to try for Flag football in the 2028 Summer Olympics. If the proposal gains enough voting appeal, 75% of the league's owners (24 out of 32) will have to approve the measure. Now, when you talk to an NFL Suite executive, there seems to be some certain support beyond NFL Specialist Roger Goodell.

"This is the benefit of the game problem, and it may be more important than the team's benefits," said an NFC team president. "But that's what the league has been building. … It's a great opportunity for games (Olympics), providing an unprecedented growth (opportunity) for the NFL and an amazing lead to getting into training camp."

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Added to an AFC team chair: "It's a wise way - to be honest, I believe it's a well-thought-ending to be part of the global stage every four years. I'm injured (worry), but all other major professional sports in the U.S. have been part of the Olympics for 30 years or more. Baseball in the NBA, NHL and NHL and major leagues are all taking this risk.

While the logistics of the Olympic soccer teams participating in the NFL are still unclear, some of the guardrails are: These include:

• The league will allow one player in each NFL lineup to try an Olympic team in a country - if multiple players on a team are eligible for non-U.S. rosters, opening the door for multiple players on a team to participate in the Olympics. For example, one player can try it for the US team, while another can meet the requirements of the ancestors for the Canadian team. Players from each team can also try their own national team.

• The Flag Football team needs to meet medical standards and play superficial tasks to be eligible for NFL players. It also needs to expand all parts of its schedule so that players' NFL schedule will take precedence over everything else.

• The league's insurance coverage is to protect players from any injuries in any flag-foot-related activities. Beyond that, any team that loses players wins the injury associated with the national flag.

This is still a rough outline of the obstacles, even making participation of NFL players possible. It clearly acknowledges that some sports risks involved – also demonstrated in some youth flag football studies, suggesting that the injury rate is much lower than contact football, but with little harm. Given this reality, there is a clear silence within the personnel executives, and the whole world is a team-first mentality.

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"Pandora's box," said a long-time and senior AFC executive. “Think about Robert Edwards who was injured a few years ago and blowing up his knee that kicked flag football on the beach.”

Edwards, a 1998 New England Patriots first-round pick, threw 1,446 yards of rushing and 12 touchdowns in the rookie — just derailed his career after experiencing a fearsome knee injury at the Pro Bowl. After his injury, he barely avoided amputations and did not play again until the 2002 season, when his brief season with the Miami Dolphins made him play very little.

For those who remember it, this is the scene of football nightmare, which is why some NFL contracts write it into the terms prohibiting any participation in flag football. Of course, for a coalition trying to address the surplus barriers to global consumption, and Jerry Jones’s “difficult” problem of how to get Chinese people to take over football – potential rewards sometimes mitigate potential risks.

And, not just the people who are interested in the owner. George Atallah is a former senior senior director of the NFL Players Association for the past 16 years and has been talking to NFL players Year About the possibilities of the Olympic experience. His Vantage? If there are coaches and front office executives who assume that star players won’t be Olympic athletes in the flag football game, that’s wrong.

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“I don’t agree with Xingxing not wanting to play,” Atala said. "NFL players will be weird. My opinion is that from the last few years talking to players about this being a star player that definitely wants to play. If the closest high-profile simulation sports are the NBA, almost all players who have won the gold medal of superstars, point to this medal, which is the highest highlight of their career. When you put the American flag behind it."

Atallah notes that the sport itself has different impacts on the world population when it does not require a lot of expensive equipment. He noted that football is a global phenomenon and has absorbed basketball quickly throughout the planet - which is largely just a single ball and can aim at it.

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"The flag football opportunity gives the league a chance to get into the game with little to no chance in terms of players and fans," Atala said. "That's the whole thing. Football, it's a field and a ball. Basketball, it's a ball and a basketball."

Atallah also pointed out that flag football has also eliminated the gender barrier that is always present on the NFL sports field. So it not only takes football into the hands of new fans, it is the first time to watch the Olympics in the Olympics Each hand.

Everyone…probably every country…revisit and grow between every four years of the global Olympic spectator. Allowing NFL players to be part of it may not be the solution to the NFL to eventually break the goal down into a true global fan base, but it may be the best yet. That's why this week is at the front and center of the NFL owners' agenda.