Goodell wishes the league ‘had listened earlier’ to Kaepernick

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell directly addressed Colin Kaepernick in an interview released Sunday, saying “I wish we had listened earlier” to the former quarterback who in 2016 began kneeling during the pregame playing of the national anthem in a protest that continues to reverberate.

Explaining what he would say to Kaepernick now, Goodell told former NFL linebacker Emmanuel Acho: “The first thing I’d say is I wish we had listened earlier, Kaep, to what you were kneeling about and what you were trying to bring attention to. We invited him in several times to have the conversation, to have the dialogue. I wish we had the benefit of that. We never did. We would have benefited from that. Absolutely.”

Goodell’s comments were his latest revisiting of the stance he and the NFL had taken on player protests about police brutality and racial inequality. Goodell’s comments about Kaepernick were made during the first segment of a two-part interview with Acho on the former NFL linebacker’s popular digital series, “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man.”

In early June, Goodell filmed a video in which he admitted that the league was “wrong in silencing our players for peacefully protesting” police brutality and social injustice during the national anthem. That extraordinary admission was spurred by a video featuring the league’s young stars, including Patrick Mahomes, but absent from Goodell’s statement was an apology to or mention of Kaepernick.

Goodell said the video featuring Mahomes and others — made in the wake of protests initially ignited by the killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer — helped change his mind. “I’m a big believer in dialogue and frankly I talk to my kids and others all the time and you really don’t learn until you’re uncomfortable,” Goodell told Acho.