VSiN By The Books | August 6, 2026 | Hour 1

**Dave Ross** (0:17)
Dave Ross right here at the Mint Gaming Hall in Franklin, Kentucky. Our closer Jensen Lewis back home in Cleveland, Ohio.
Woo, we are excited. I'm walking through the Mint Gaming Hall. We made it, Jensen. We made it, finally. We get football tonight in the NFL. And I'm not kidding you. Probably five or six different security guards that I say hi to every morning coming through.
Probably four had questions about the NFL tonight. We are excited to have it back. I said, we made it, everybody, just like you, Jensen. We actually have football tonight. We're going to get to all of that. And what a show we got lined up today. Mike Paul and the maestro is going to join us right there from the mothership in Las Vegas later on in hour number two. Rob Bradford is going to rejoin the program as well. Talk all things Red Sox. Boy, have they been on fire as well. And of course, Will Hill. I believe Will is out there in Sin City as well. And I do not believe he skipped Arm Day. So we're going to catch up with the great Will Hill a little bit later on in this program as well. But Jensen, you said it right off the top. We've made it Celebrate America. It's time to talk some National Football League and our highlights and headlines.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:20)
Help your bottom line with today's highlights and headlines.

**Dave Ross** (1:30)
Yes, it's back in our lives. I know it's preseason football, but we get excited for Canton, Ohio every year because we've been starved for it since February Jensen, Panthers, Cardinals. We know the quarterbacks. We've talked about that. We'll break down the numbers, but just to have football back in our lives, it does feel different.

**Jensen Lewis** (1:48)
Oh, man. It is so good to be able to see just those plates and those logos. And I know a lot of people descending upon the Heartland here over the last handful of days, lots of ceremonies in Northeast Ohio. And if you've not had a chance to make it to Canton, truly they have revamped that whole experience out there. Dave, of course, Tom Benson Stadium now, an actual stadium, they used to play it at a high school, basically equivalent there for years past. But it is an experience now going through there. And we do know that there are some bettable angles here. A couple of things to get out to people that are on their way to work. Jeremiah Love will not play tonight. That by design there for the Cardinals, the number three overall pick. Good little angle here from Steve Macken. Remember, we told you yesterday that underdogs have won the last five outright in the Hall of Fame game and have covered since 2013, eight, two and one. So if you're looking to blindly bet it, Cardinals plus the points might be a conservative way. The other one is when the total is in the mid thirties as it is here tonight, Dave, 35 and a half.
Steve tells us the over has cashed in four consecutive Hall of Fame games. So usually we're used to little Army, Navy, you know, it's an under and don't worry about it. But now we've had some offense. So perhaps we see that again tonight.

**Dave Ross** (3:10)
And again, remember that total is down a full point. That was 36 and a half earlier in the week. That's come down a full point and it kind of stopped right there at 35 and a half. So if you want to follow Steve's trend, you're getting the better of it here. If you're playing that over 35 and a half, because it has come down ever so slightly. One of the questions that one of the guards asked me on the way in, which I thought was an astute observation, I was asked, what do I think of Stefan Diggs going to the Commanders? And I said, and Jensen, this is where I'm really showing my age. I covered them in Maryland. That's how long ago it was. I was still in DC. He was a young pup at University of Maryland. And all of these, boy, a decade and a half later, here we are with Stefan Diggs. One year, 12 million, they need some depth in that wide receiving core. We're waiting to see about Scary Terry, what he's going to look like and all those things. What do you think of Stefan Diggs going home to a degree back to the DMV?

**Jensen Lewis** (4:01)
Did not move the number whatsoever for the commander. 60 to 1 to win the Super Bowl. The NFC is still 30 to 1 The NFC East, still there at plus 460