VSiN Daily 8-30-26

VSiN on the move: Starting Tuesday, Channel 189 is the new home of VSiN on SiriusXM. If you already have VSiN as one of your favorites on your SiriusXM radio, you don’t need to do a thing.

🏈 Who Will Surprise Us This NFL Season?

With Week 0 openers and the NFL preseason finales as background music, Ultimate Contest Weekend at Circa culminated in a lively panel discussion about the upcoming NFL season.

Circa master of ceremonies Mike Palm asked the panelists about teams that might exceed expectations.

Chicago-based reporter Ruthie Polinsky sees upside in the Titans and Saints.

Austin Ekeler — still on the lookout for a team in need of a veteran running back — expects the “cursed” Chargers to get over the hump this season.

Former VSiN host Amal Shah favors the John Harbaugh-led Giants in a division with teams he doesn't like quite so much.

My favorite: Circa oddsmaker Jeff Sherman made the case for the Colts, who are a juicy 55-1 to win the Super Bowl, because Daniel Jones will be back from injury.

🎥 Watch the Whole Discussion →

Ultimate Contest Weekend is one of my favorite events of the year because I get to talk with so many VSiN fans.

That included K-De Demesa Prado — aka Kdeuces from the Circa Survivor documentary — along with her husband Carlos and my better half, Heather.

🎥 One Episode Left

The Circa Survivor: The Quest for $18.7 Million finale airs Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET. Catch up on the first six before then.

🎥 Binge the First Six Episodes →

And the real-life contest keeps getting bigger: As of Saturday night, Circa Survivor had crossed 15,000 entries with two weeks left until the deadline.

If you're entering the Circa football contests, VSiN fans still get $50 off FootballContest.com proxy service with promo code VSiN.

👉 Sign Up for FootballContest.com Proxy Service →

🏈 I Was Wrong About Being Wrong

In the wee hours Saturday morning, I mistakenly wrote that Chiefs +2.5 didn't cover. Of course, it did.

Then the Lions +3.5 won outright against the Colts on Saturday.

That means our Week 3 record was actually 2-1, and we finished our preseason analytics experiment using Steve Makinen's systems at 6-3 overall.

Dave Tuley's final preseason ATS report:

Week 3: Underdogs finished 8-7-1 SU and 11-5 ATS; Overs 9-7.

Weeks 1-3: Dogs led 26-20-2 SU and 33-14-1 ATS (70.2%); Unders 27-22.

And now it's cutdown day in the NFL. Teams need to get down to 53 players by 6 p.m. ET.

🏈 Week 0 Is in the Books

As you may recall, I used Steve Makinen's Analytics Report to come up with three picks:

🥇 North Carolina +9.5 vs. TCU — W

🥈 UNLV -4.5 vs. Memphis — L

🥉 Hawaii +4 at Stanford — L

So we finish 1-2 in Week 0.

I was feeling pretty good after the Tar Heels' outright win, but that Hawaii +4 was a tough one.

⚠️ Warning: This Video Could Induce Flashbacks of Bad Beats →