Tom Brady on Colin Kaepernick: 'I hope he gets a shot' to play in the NFL again

Add Tom Brady to the list of future first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterbacks who think Colin Kaepernick should be playing in the NFL. In an exclusive interview with "CBS Sunday Morning" on Sunday morning, the Patriots star was asked about Kaepernick.

"I've always watched him and admired him, the way that he's played he was a great young quarterback," Brady told Norah O'Donnell. "He came to our stadium and beat us and took his team to the Super Bowl. He accomplished a lot in the pros as a player. And he's certainly qualified and I hope he gets a shot."

Brady's comments come several weeks after Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said this about Kaepernick's situation.

"I think he should be on a roster right now. I think because of his protests, he's not," Rodgers told ESPN The Magazine's Mina Kimes.

After spending his first six seasons with the 49ers, Kaepernick and the team parted ways in the spring and he remains out of work. Depending on who you ask, it's because he's being blackballed for kneeling during the national anthem last year to protest social injustice, or due to the fact that he just hasn't been a very good quarterback in recent years. It's been 13 months since Kaepernick first took a knee during the anthem, prompting both outrage and support that spanned the political spectrum.

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick said in August 2016. "To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."

Other players -- in the NFL and other sports -- followed Kaepernick's lead, taking a knee during the anthem, including Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett, who began the practice this preseason.

"[The violence in] Charlottesville was the tipping point for me," Bennett told CNN last month after the violent "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, left one woman dead and 19 injured. "To see so much hate. … There was no way I could go out there and hide behind the game."

Last week, a day after Bennett claimed that he was the victim of excessive force and racial profiling by the Las Vegas Police Department late last month, he explained why he continues to protest.

"I have always held a strong conviction that protesting or standing up for justice is just simply, the right thing to do," Bennett explained in a tweet. "This fact is unequivocally, without question why before every game I sit during the national anthem -- because equality doesn't live in this country and no matter how much money you make, what job title you have, or how much you give, when you are seen as a n------, you will be treated that way."

Meanwhile, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell thinks Kaepernick's situation isn't about activism, but a result of teams deciding that the quarterback isn't a good fit for their respective systems.

"I want to see everyone get an opportunity, including Colin, but those decisions are made by football people," Goodell said during an appearance on FS1 last week. "When teams have a need and teams feel like they can get better by a particular individual, whether they know the system, or whether they have more talent, or whatever it may be, that's what they do. And I'm still convinced that he'll get that opportunity when the right opportunity comes along. That's what our league's all about."