Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has a surprising opinion on Kaepernick's protest

The quarterback for the Green Bay Packers weighed in on the controversy over Colin Kaepernick's national anthem protest, and he tried to thread the needle on both sides of the issue.

Aaron Rodgers spoke to ESPN Magazine in an interview published Wednesday.

Rodgers says it would be "ignorant" to believe that the former Forty-Niners' quarterback didn't have a position on a team purely because of his skill as a football player.

"I think he should be on a roster right now," he tells ESPN. "I think because of his protests, he's not."

Kaepernick began a national controversy when he first began kneeling during the national anthem to protest what he saw as unfair and prejudicial treatment of blacks by the police.

Rodgers said he didn't personally support the protest, and wouldn't kneel himself, but understood and supported his fellow team players would protest themselves.

"I'm gonna stand because that's the way I feel about the flag," he explained, "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," he added. "That's what they're trying to get a conversation started around."

"I think the best way I can say this is: I don't understand what it's like to be in that situation. What it is to be pulled over, or profiled, or any number of issues that have happened, that Colin was referencing," he explains, "or any of my teammates have talked to me about."

"But I know it's a real thing my black teammates have to deal with," he concluded.

Kaepernick is not slated to play for any team in the 2017 NFL season which begins in September.