NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is talking about Colin Kaepernick, kneeling, the national anthem and the American flag again. This time, he’s doing it with a former NFL player. And he’s expressing more regret about the way the league has handled those issues.
Goodell sat with Emmanuel Acho for Acho’s YouTube series “Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man.” Part 1 of the talk was posted Sunday night and Part 2 is scheduled to be posted Monday.Â
Acho’s early questions were about the movement Kaepernick started in 2016 by sitting, and then kneeling, during the national anthem prior to 49ers games to protest police brutality and racial injustice. Acho asked Goodell what he would say to the free-agent quarterback if Goodell were to apologize for his and the league’s response to the protests.
“Well, the first thing I’d say is that I wish we had listened earlier, Kap, to what you were kneeling about and trying to bring attention to,” Goodell said. He also said Kaepernick was invited several times to “have the conversation” with the league regarding the protests, but “we never did.”
“You know, we would have benefited from that, absolutely,” Goodell added.
The commissioner was more direct as he agreed with Acho that players’ actions are not intended to disrespect the flag or the military.
“It is not about the flag,” Goodell said. “The message here [is] that what our players are doing is being mischaracterized. These are not people who are unpatriotic. They’re not disloyal, They’re not against our military. In fact, many of those guys were in the military, and they’re a military family. What they were trying to do is exercise their right to bring attention to something that needs to get fixed.
“That misrepresentation of who they were and what they were doing was the thing that really gnawed at me.”
