Roger Goodell is all about Colin Kaepernick joining an NFL team this season. The NFL commissioner appeared on ESPN’s Return to Sports special on Monday and talked about the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback. Goodell said it’s going to be up to a team signing Kaepernick, who has been out of the league since 2016. However, Goodell will welcome Kaepernick’s voice on racial injustice.
“Well, listen, if he wants to resume his career in the NFL, then obviously it’s going to take a team to make that decision,” Goodell said. “But I welcome that, support a club making that decision and encourage them to do that.” Goodell added he would welcome Kaepernick to help the league on social issues so they can “make better decisions about the kinds of things that need to be done in the communities.” He also mentioned he invited Kaepernick before and “we want to make sure that everybody’s welcome at that table and trying to help us deal with some very complex, difficult issues that have been around for a long time.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
Goodell’s interview on ESPN comes shortly after he released a video that stated the league was wrong to ignore players protesting during the national anthem. In the video, Goodell said: “We, the NFL, condemn racism and the systematic oppression of Black People. We, the NFL, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest. We, the NFL, believe Black Lives Matter.” This was in response to a video done by NFL players calling on the league to take a stronger stance on racism.
Kaepernick protested during the entire 2016 season by taking a knee during the national anthem. Once the 2016 season came to an end, Kaepernick opted out of his contract with the 49ers and has not been on an NFL team since. Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll recently talked about the time when he brought in Kaepernick for a visit in 2017. Carroll admitted the team should have signed him at that time. Carroll told reporters, “I regret that we weren’t the one way back when that just did it just to do it, even though I thought that it wasn’t the right fit necessarily for us at the time.”
