VSiN By The Books | August 31, 2026 | Hour 1

**Dave Ross** (0:02)
This is VSiN, the SportsBetting Network.
And a good Monday morning to you and yours, Dave Ross right here at the Mid-Gaming Hall, 8 Franklin, Kentucky, our closer Jensen Lewis back home in Cleveland, Ohio. Wow, we've made it through week zero, my man. We're getting through NFL cut downs. We've got a slam going on in New York City in the world of tennis. And golf has come to an end. Yes, we'll get to the President's Cup next month. But Jensen, so much now as it feels like this sports world and the calendar is really starting to change.

**Jensen Lewis** (0:48)
Yeah, Pennant Race Baseball, we get the roster expansions tomorrow, September 1st, upon us. Crazy to think that we're in September already. It's been a fast year all the way around.
A lot to dive into, a lot to think about what we learned from an abbreviated week zero slate. Obviously, a lot of key things that happened. Did we have any news in the NFL yesterday? Kind of a slow news day, if you will. I hope everyone can understand the sarcasm that I have there.
And yeah, we get a little bit of the US open. The honey deuce is flowing left, right and center from flushing. So a lot to dive into this week, my man. Looking forward to it.

**Dave Ross** (1:26)
A great Monday morning show lined up. Our GM, Marty Herney, is going to join us as he does each and every Monday. We'll talk about cut down day. It feels like those rosters are finalized, but not exactly. You start to look at other teams here and their practice squad player, see if you can pick and improve your roster. Zachary Cohen is going to join us, as he always does, to talk some of that US open here in hour number three. And of course, the King of Connecticut, Will Hill, to get his best bets as well. But we do have some breaking news right here. When you wake up, you're a recent pro subscriber today. That's where we begin our highlights and headlines.
The updated guide is out. Read all about it. Yes, that's right. This is the 2 version. The updated NFL betting guide is available right now. Roster is being finalized across the league. Jensen, sometimes, even though you feel like it's finalized, it's not exactly, there could still be one or two moves that are made here as you look to improve yourself, as I mentioned, from other teams. But what we've learned in the preseason as a network, we've tried to now put that into context here. And that betting guide is really going to help you after what we did initially with the 1 and now the revamped 2 version of it.

**Jensen Lewis** (2:43)
Yeah, about 50 pages of stuff that we've now made adjustments on from where we were in the original VSiN NFL Betting Guide. Some other great additions here, especially with week one on the horizon next week, 12 betting systems for just week one alone by our great friend Steve Mack. And Adam Burke does basically a week by week mock selection process for Survivor, which is outstanding. There are a lot of different tools that are circus centric as far as Survivor and Millions, so not just the differences in the best bets that many of our hosts have out there. Also updated team capsules for all 32 NFL franchises.
This is really a great betting tool, Dave, in so many respects because it does allow you, if you are now just kind of sinking your teeth in with football coming back over the weekend, that you can really play some catch up here. It is a nice little cheat sheet for a lot of those different teams. And I got to tell you, we're going to take a fair amount of time this week looking through the contest strategy, both million survivor, really outstanding stuff from Adam Burke and our entire team. Job well done yet again.

**Dave Ross** (3:58)
Yeah, and some surprises out there, at least to roster construction of some of these teams, the Browns keeping four quarterbacks, the Steelers, my man Doc Bosch was all over it, said they would keep all four. They did. So some interesting ways that teams are putting those rosters together, as you mentioned, Jensen, but check it out today, if you're a VSiN Pro subscriber, the 2 version is out, and it's going to include the Rams.
The Ritz get richer. Worse kept secret, like we knew this was coming. You and I have been talking about this in the program all summer long. It's official. Aaron Donald out of retirement. It's just going to be a one year deal. And you could hear from Sean McVay all summer long, right? He couldn't wait to actually make it official. You saw him working out. You saw the IG post, and we kind of put two and two together. So Jensen, now that this is a reality, we all have to figure out what he looks like, but we know when you just look at Aaron Donald, it looks like nothing has changed, except maybe a couple of dates in the calendar.