Change isn't coming. It's already here. Commerce is going digital and tax complexity is multiplying.

Tax rules evolve, rate shift, data floods in. Vertex connects it all.

A global tax compliance platform powered by tax-ready data and intelligence systems.

Smarter tech, continuous tax compliance, built-in confidence.

Learn more at vertexinck.com. This is the athletic football show.

Welcome to the athletic football show.

I'm Robert May is joining me today.

It's my good friend Nate Tyson.

How you doing, buddy?

Doing very well. It is October. And this is really, especially in Vegas, because now it's the flip of when I grew up in Minnesota. It is, Minnesota was freezing. And like, fall was like, okay, we're going to finally enjoy this kind of, you know, last a bit of warmth before the winter hits. And here in Vegas, it's like, oh, my God, we got through the heat. Thank God. Like, it's like, you're just reversing. It's a hot, cold contrast that we're going through right now. But I'm doing extremely, extremely well. I hope you're doing well as two, Robert. It's 80 degrees here, which is kind of annoying. I just want to wear a sweater and it won't let me. That was always my deal

in L.A. when my first couple years in L.A. when I moved there, I always pushed the sweater

weather too fast because that's my natural resting state is wearing a sweater or a light jacket.

Like that's where I'm best. I don't know the body type for summer. Never really have.

But in L.A. I always used to push it too quickly And I would be wearing a sweater when it would be like 78 degrees because it was October 20th or whatever. I want this. I'm demanding that this happens. So I'm a little annoyed about that. But we're going to, uh, we're going to Colorado this weekend. And we're staying up in the mountains with our friends who are living there right now. So it's going to be like 40. So I'm very ready to wear a nice, nice mid, nice midweight jacket. Midway jacket. In Frisco and Breckenridge, Colorado here over the next few days. Crisp. You just, you just want some crisp in your life. Crisp weather. The calendar has turned to October. We are four weeks into the season. We're about a quarter of the way in, even though the NFL decided that they were going to make this harder in us and have 17 games, so there's no clean lines anymore. I'll bring it up every year because I hate it. It makes me antsy for a few weeks. We're going to use this opportunity, though, about a month into the season. Just talk about some pleasant surprises. You know, sometimes we can't really get into a couple of these teams because they still don't have the most intriguing games as part of these previews. They got one of the teams we're going to talk about today, got beat up by the Niners on Sunday night. So they don't really fit neatly into some of the boxes that we've created.

But I still feel like over the course of the last few weeks, there have been so many little nuggets, moments, realizations, revelations as we've gone back and watched a lot of these teams. So that's what we're going to do today. We're just going to talk about some of the most pleasant surprises, some of the most pleasant kind of unearthings that there have been over the NFL season here four weeks into the year.

Yeah. pleasant surprises, some of the most pleasant kind of unearthings that there have been over the NFL season here four weeks into the year. Yeah, it's a, oh, yeah, that one thing we offhand mentioned, we're like, oh, they're doing some, we'll talk about it, and then we just never get to it. Or like you said, there's no matchup. And also sometimes, no, we try to predict a lot. We can't know like this is this is sometimes we just don't know. And sometimes that's what's so amazing about the NFL. We think we know. We think we know. And we have no idea. And it is just that that is exactly what the section is. Or maybe ones that we were interested in and bumped up or ones that have been a total revelation, which I'm excited to talk about. I'm sure. And I think you know who I'm going to talk about, but I think you're excited to talk about. Where do you want to start? Let's go with the Cardinals. Because I, let's just get it off like, this is, because this has been one of my favorite watches, is the Arizona Cardinals. I can't even believe how much I enjoy watching them, especially on offense.

When I turn on the Cardinals tape, I just find myself in such a good place.

There are so many different moments over the course of the game, even against the Niners,

where it's like, oh, that's good.

Oh, that's good.

Oh, man.

Oh, that's so close, but that's really good.

...