Packers' Rodgers says Kaepernick 'should be on a roster right now'
Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said in an interview with ESPN the Magazine that Turlock son Colin Kaepernick, former 49ers QB and now an unsigned free agent, “should be on a roster right now.”
In a wide-ranging interview for the magazine’s Sept. 18 NFL Preview Issue, he added, “I think because of his protests, he’s not.”
Pitman High alum Kaepernick made national headlines when he sat during the national anthem before a preseason game in August 2016. He later began kneeling, and was joined by a couple of teammates, to call attention to racial injustice throughout the nation.
On officer-involved killings of blacks, Kaepernick said that year, “There’s people being murdered unjustly and not being held accountable. People are being given paid leave for killing people. That’s not right. That’s not right by anyone’s standards.”
“The word ‘blackballed’ is being used with greater frequency,” ESPN’sMinaKimes writes in her story, “though some people in and around the NFL maintain that the quarterback simply isn’t very good. I ask Rodgers what he thinks, and he demurs at first, then says it would be ‘ignorant’ to suggest Kaepernick’s stance didn’t play a role in his employment status.”
In the article, Rodgers describes Kaepernick’s protest as peaceful and respectful and says that while he’ll continue to stand “because that’s the way I feel about the flag,” he fully supports any teammates or other players who choose not to. “They have a battle for racial equality. That’s what they’re trying to get a conversation started around,” he says.
He adds: “I think the best way I can say this is: I don’t understand what it’s like to be in that situation. What it is to be pulled over, or profiled, or any number of issues that have happened, that Colin was referencing – or any of my teammates have talked to me about. ... But I know it’s a real thing my black teammates have to deal with.”
This story was originally published August 31, 2017 at 7:40 AM with the headline "Packers' Rodgers says Kaepernick 'should be on a roster right now'."