For much of his NFL career, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has worked hard to protect his privacy. He makes funny jokes and has good lines for press conferences, but we don’t really know a whole lot about him.
He recently sat down with ESPN’s Mina Kimes, and they had a wide-ranging discussion that is a fascinating read. He talks more about questions related to faith and his life than football, and while he does not offer a ton of detail, what he does mention is intriguing.
The whole feature is worth a read, but of course there is a Colin Kaepernick mention I wanted to pull out. Rodgers says he thinks it would be "ignorant" to think Kaepernick’s protest did not play a role in his current unemployed status. He and Kimes spoke multiple times over several weeks, and later, he was a little more succinct.
"I think he should be on a roster right now," he says. "I think because of his protests, he's not."
Rodgers said he would continue standing for the National Anthem, “but I'm also 100 percent supportive of my teammates or any fellow players who are choosing not to. They have a battle for racial equality. That's what they're trying to get a conversation started around."
Kimes talked with several of Rodgers’ teammates, including Randall Cobb, who described him as a “sponge” when it came to their various conversations. Cobb said the two of them have had discussions about Cobb’s perspective as a black man growing up in the South, and he thinks it opened Rodgers’ eyes.
The entire article is worth a read, even for us as 49ers fans. It’s interesting to hear a professional athlete delve into subjects that we are not used to, and for some might make them uncomfortable. Professional athletes are not robots, and while in many ways they live a life of privilege, they also have plenty of ordinary issues to deal with that we all face on a regular basis.