Don't @ Me with Dan Dakich · Outkick

Colin Kaepernick's Latest Grift: New Book, Same Old Story + Masters Betting Guide: Dakich’s Top Picks, Sleepers & Winner

April 8, 2026·1 hr 9 min·5 clips
Dan Dakich calls Colin Kaepernick a grifter over his new book, questioning his motives and legacy.
Colin Kaepernick gets the opening shot. The host treats the new book as one more chapter in a public act built around controversy, brand attention, and a football career he says never matched the chaos around it. He gives Kaepernick one real credit: taking the knee when it could cost him. After that, he is done giving ground. He does not buy the idea that the NFL stayed away for racial reasons. His comparison is Tim Tebow, another player who, in his view, was not strong enough on the field to outrun the spectacle off it. Then the rant cuts loose. The show wanders through a quick laugh about people trying to sound serious, then keeps charging because this host does not sit in silence for long. Fernando Mendoza becomes the actual turn. The projected first overall pick has told the NFL he will not attend the draft in Pittsburgh because he wants to share the moment with his mother, who has ALS, and his family in Miami. The host likes it. He says Mendoza keeps making the right calls, then almost immediately starts arguing with himself about whether he would have made the same call at twenty-three. That tension is the show in miniature. Take a hard stand, poke at it, bend it a little, then come back louder. Draft day becomes less about ceremony and more about risk. Somebody goes first, somebody goes last, and the whole thing is fun until a player sits too long while cameras wait for his face to change. Aaron Rodgers is the warning story. The host says he would not go unless an honest agent told him he was a total lock near the top, maybe top ten, maybe top five. College sports gets the last shove. A coach's advice to young players is basically this: play a year, leave, get paid, and keep doing it while the system allows it. The host does not love the mess, but he will not pretend he has the fix from behind a microphone. The SCORE Act is the only named answer he gives. Without antitrust protection for the NCAA, he says he is ready to sit back with popcorn and watch it burn sideways. The close lands where this show often does: mockery, resignation, and one more argument with a room that is not arguing back.

As heard by us

A combative sports-radio episode that jumps from Kaepernick to draft-day nerves.

Dan Dakich spends the episode moving from a hard-edged riff on Colin Kaepernick's new book to draft-day nerves and family pressure, keeping sports talk and politics in the same frame.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a no-filter sports rant that lurches from Kaepernick's new book to draft-day pressure, start here.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
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