Brett Favre says Colin Kaepernick to be treated as hero like Pat Tillman, deserves to play

Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre compared Colin Kaepernick's larger-than-football legacy to the late Pat Tillman on Sunday. 

Favre told TMZ Sports in a video interview that Kaepernick's willingness to sacrifice his NFL career to fight for social justice felt reminiscent of Tillman's sacrifice for his country. Tillman, a safety for the Arizona Cardinals, chose to leave the NFL for the U.S. Army in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001. He was killed by friendly fire in 2004 while deployed in Afghanistan.

"I can only think of — right off the top of my head — Pat Tillman's another guy who did something similar, and we regard him as a hero," Favre said. "So I'd assume that hero status will be stamped with Kaepernick as well."

Favre was asked by the TMZ Sports interviewer if Kaepernick had reached the stature of Jackie Robinson or Muhammad Ali for helping break societal barriers.

Kaepernick, a former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, hasn't played an NFL game since 2016, sitting out the past three seasons after he chose to kneel during the national anthem to protest racial injustice and police brutality. 

"It's not easy for a guy his age — black or white, Hispanic, whatever — to stop something that you've always dreamed of doing and put it on hold, maybe forever, for something that you believe in," Favre said of Kaepernick.

"I think from a football sense, I can't imagine him being that far out of shape or that far out of touch with football that he doesn't deserve a shot. ... He's still young and hasn't been hit in several years, so there's no reason to think that he's lost that much of a step."

In 2017, numerous NFL players knelt to follow Kaepernick's lead, with many joining for one week after President Trump said at a September rally that any player protesting during the anthem should be fired. Saints quarterback Drew Brees recently backpedaled off comments he made saying he would never support kneeling because he felt the act was disrespectful. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell also said on June  the league took the wrong approach in its stance on peaceful protests after numerous NFL players asked the league to speak up and support the Black Lives Matter movement in wake of George Floyd's May 25 death.