Roger Goodell made clear his remorse at the way the NFL handled Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the national anthem, saying: "I wish we had listened earlier".

The quarterback opted to kneel during the 2016 season in protest against racial injustice and police brutality. He was released at the end of the campaign by the San Francisco 49ers and has not played in the league since.

Kaepernick filed a grievance against the NFL in 2017, accusing owners of colluding to keep him out of a job. A settlement was reached in his case in February 2019.

Appearing on former NFL linebacker Emmanuel Acho's YouTube series titled 'Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man', Goodell was asked what he would say in a public apology to Kaepernick 

"Well, the first thing I'd say is I wished we had listened earlier, Kaep, to what you were kneeling about and what you were trying to bring attention to," he told Acho.

"We had invited him in several times to have the conversation, to have the dialogue. I wish we had the benefit of that.

"We never did and, you know, we would've benefited from that. Absolutely."

Goodell also spoke about the topic of players kneeling in general, insisting such an action has been misinterpreted as being unpatriotic and anti-military.

Instead, the commissioner believes it is a message to "bring attention to something that needs to get fixed".

"It is not about the flag. The message here that what our players are doing is being mischaracterised," Goodell said.

"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."