Ava Rotondi named NFL FLAG 2026 Player of the Year

Ava Rotondi is NFL FLAG’s 2026 Player of the Year, a national honor that sent the Staten Island wide receiver and safety to NFL Honors in San Francisco on Feb. 5, 2026. The award was presented by Toyota, and NFL FLAG tied it to an all-expenses-paid trip for Rotondi and a parent or guardian, putting a youth flag player on the same red carpet as the NFL’s biggest offseason names.

Rotondi’s profile is built on the traits NFL FLAG is rewarding now: versatility, leadership and visibility. The league identifies her as a standout for THT in Staten Island, New York, and says she has played flag football since elementary school. That detail matters because it places her inside the sport’s long-term pipeline, not as a late convert, but as a player shaped by the game from the start. NFL FLAG describes her as confident, disciplined and passionate, and calls her a fearless leader and trusted team captain.

Her recognition also carried back home. St. Joseph by-the-Sea staged a celebratory send-off before she headed to San Francisco, and the school later honored Rotondi at a Feb. 27 ceremony that also recognized championship soccer teams and competitive cheerleaders for their 2025-2026 season achievements. The public celebration turned a youth sports award into a visible community moment, the kind of spotlight NFL FLAG increasingly uses to show that flag football now produces identifiable stars, not just strong team seasons.

That strategy reaches beyond one player. NFL FLAG’s third annual NFL FLAG Championships Presented by Toyota will run July 23-26, 2026, at Grand Park Sports Campus in Westfield, Indiana, with championship games set for Sunday, July 26. The event will bring together regional tournament teams from all 32 NFL clubs plus international teams, giving the youth game a national and international stage that mirrors the sport’s growing ambitions. NFL Honors, which debuted in 2012, gives those youth honorees a direct link to the league’s marquee awards platform, and Rotondi’s selection shows the kind of athlete the sport wants at the front of that stage.