Hey, it's Guy here.
Football season is finally upon us, and it's been an interesting offseason, to say the least.
We had some blockbuster trades, like Kirk Cousins heading to the Falcons, where apparently part of his compensation may or may not include Cole's cash.
Or Aaron Rodgers talking to the press about his ayahuasca retreat, of all things.
Jokes aside, Sunday mornings have been slow, and lots of people are ready for the action to pick back up.
And this season, there's a new podcast called The Offensive Line with Annie Agar.
You might know Annie from her Uncomfortable Tea Meeting series on social.
Annie kicks back with NFL stars and celeb superfans throughout the season to unpack the week's lines, odds, and spreads with more banter and trash talk than your fantasy group chat.
The pod is packed with humor and a must listen to keep up with the latest in NFL news and culture.
Here's a clip from The Offensive Line.
Follow The Offensive Line on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome to The Offensive Line, you guys.
We're here to make some picks, talk some shit, and hopefully make you some money.
You guys, we have a great guest this week.
I'm very honored we could bring him on, that we could get him this close football season.
The one and only, Field Yates.
Field, thanks for joining us today.
Annie, thank you for having me.
How the heck are you, by the way?
I'm doing better. I'll do better after Friday.
I got to get through Friday.
The Packers have to win in Brazil and then I'll be okay.
I'm going to start by saying last year we all know the Jets season effectively kind of ended in week one when Aaron went down.
This plays into our first topic here.
We have a couple guys, veteran quarterbacks, that have the potential maybe comeback player of the year.
There's a couple on here.
Actually, they all, I think they're all pretty good candidates.
We have Rogers and the New York Jets plus four at San Francisco.
Cousins in Atlanta, of course, minus three versus Pittsburgh, and then Borough in Cincinnati, minus eight and a half against the New England Patriots.
I think of comebacks legitimately.
I mean, Alex Smith is at the very extreme end, but to your point, Aaron Rodgers played four snaps last season.
Coming back from that injury, given the circumstances of the trade and everything that led up to the trade, and being 40 years old, or 40 in December of this year, that to me is like a legitimately impressive comeback.
And so I think Rogers probably is the default answer for me because the Jets, a franchise that hasn't made the playoffs in 13 years, last season was a total disaster without Aaron Rodgers.
There's all this pressure mounting on the entire organization.
Everybody knows it's like, go big or potentially like get lost in that organization right now.
Rodgers probably is like the most likely candidate because of the narrative that would go along with it.
I think Joe Burrow could win the award as well, because I do think since he's going to be really good, but I feel like in order for him to win it, it would require them to be like 12 and five, first or second best record in the entire AFC, and then Rodgers and Kirk Cousins having like, kind of ho hum season.
So Cousins may have the clear, I'm kind of making the case for all these guys right now, but Cousins may have the clearest path because the NFC is just not nearly as stacked as the AFC and the NFC South is, as we all know, probably the most, I would say the most winnable division in the league.
So like, Cousins, they could go 12 and five and that would be a great story, but I lean towards Rodgers just because the narrative is so prominently involved in these awards.
I think he right now is the favorite too.
And that, that totally makes sense in terms of, let's forget Cincinnati's game because the Patriots are atrocious and the likelihood of them winning, we won't say cover, but likelihood of them winning is pretty high.
The Jets overall, not just Aaron, not just Cousins, but the chances that the Jets walk away with a win week one Monday night, and then Atlanta beats up on Pittsburgh.
Do we think that those will happen?
I think Atlanta takes care of business against Pittsburgh.
I'm concerned about the Steelers this year.
We all know the famous streak, no losing seasons under Mike Tomlin as the head coach, which is crazy.
It's crazy. It's crazy.
Well, but I'm dubious of that one this year because the offensive operation just makes me, and not like it was good last year, but two things is one, the offensive operation is going to be bad.
It was, you know, that was a quarterback competition, which felt like kind of the lesser of two evils between Russell Wilson and Justin Fields.
Preseason games aren't everything.
We have certainly seen players look good in the preseason and then not be good during the regular season and vice versa, but the offense did not inspire much confidence at all this preseason.
And you know, they're, they're, they're short at wide receiver.
It's George Pickens and then sort of some unproven players and some journeymen like Van Jefferson, the offensive line, I do think has a nice collection of talent, but I'm really concerned about the difference makers beyond George Picken and the receiver room.
And then the quarterback play most importantly, but the AFC North looks so great on paper, right?
Assuming Deshaun Watson is healthy and we can, you know, everybody can have their comments now about like how he's performed through two seasons in Cleveland.
That roster is so good around him that they don't need him to be a top eight quarterback to be a really, really viable AFC contender.
If Deshaun's like a top 12 to 14 quarterback, that team is going to be in the mix.
Cincinnati, I already stated my confidence in them, even though at the time of our conversation, the Jamar Chase situation still hanging in the balance.
And then Baltimore was the best team in the NFL last year during the regular season.
They just, you know, took a whiz down their pants in the AFC championship game at home against the Chiefs.
So the ball in the postseason, John, that's what I feel to me like a legitimate bet to have that shriek snap this year.
Okay. I think I'm going to go.
I'm going to go with Rodgers and the Jets on this one.
I know it's shocking you guys, but the 49ers, they initially opened at six point favorites.
Things are shifting and I, and I don't know why.
I can only think maybe that Super Bowl losers have gone four and 19 against the spread in week one match ups.
And the 49ers are that it's time for a quick PSA to everyone out there.
The past few months, Sundays have been for brunch, farmers markets, dealing with a hangover.
But this week you might start getting that weird feeling.
It feels like your partner is distancing themselves.
They're distracted.
They start staring off into the distance.
I'm here to warn you.
This all means one thing.
Sundays are now for Scott Hanson, eight leg parlays and calculating how many points your fantasy kicker needs on a random Sunday night football game.
Why am I worried about this right now?
Is it fractional points?
Do yards matter? Did Jake Moody just miss another PAT?
This may be a difficult transitional period for loved ones.
We're here to tell you though, there is a solution.
Let them go. Yes, you heard me.
Let go of those relationships faster than Dak will throw the ball away with Miles Garrett in his face.
You think anyone should be forced to go to Home Depot instead of watching Derek Henry stiff arm some skinny DB into the crust of the earth?
Forget about pumpkin patches or Sunday strolls.
No, my friends, that is in the past.
The time for calm and relaxation is over.
The only hope for relaxation is that glorious halftime nap in the late slate of games between your ninth and 10th year.
That's why my friends, it is time to let them go.
And if they love you, they will return to you sometime in late February.
This is a, this is for all the loved ones of football fans who, this is a hard time for them.
You know, they're, they're alone in the world.
They have no one to do fall activities with.
Long six months ahead.
Yeah. You know, you gotta, you gotta find the right person.
That's what this comes down to.
You know, there are a lot of criteria that goes into finding the right partner, but somewhere near the top of the list should be that person's tolerance for football, because it's a way of life.
It's not one of those things that you kind of do with, with a half measured approach.
You either all in or you're not a football fan at all.
And I've yet to meet someone, I've yet to meet someone who's like a, I guess I have met people who aren't football fans, but I've always wondered like, what is it like to have your Sundays in the fall?
Like what do you do all day?
I genuinely don't know.
And your family is probably the same way, but we grew up, that's, we went to church early on Sundays to get home in time to cook food for the one o 'clock games.
I mean, my family are all Lions fans so that we had miserable Sundays, but still centered around the games.
Like that's all we did.
Especially Saturdays too.
My mom knew, don't ask us to do chores on Saturday.
Bless her heart. She just let us watch football day.
Yeah. So people out there, this is, you didn't think you'd get relationship advice on this podcast, but Field has it.
This is now my favorite part of the show.
This is called no offense field.
So you just, all you have to do, the only rule is you have to start out by saying no offense because everyone knows when you say no offense, the next thing you're not going to be offensive at all.
Everyone knows that rule.
No offense, but it doesn't matter how good your fantasy team name is.
If your team absolutely sucks, I don't care if you post it for the world to see on Twitter and you're like, this is the best fantasy football team name.
You gotta back it up.
Draft the guy that's used in the name.
First of all, that is my biggest pet peeve and then have an actually decent team.
Don't leave guys on your bench all season that live up to the team name.
So in the vein of that, I have some of the best team names.
One I have to, I'm going to take credit for one.
I thought of the rest come from everybody else and people are brilliant with them.
So I'd like to get your opinion on these fantasy football team names.
Are you ready? I am so ready.
Okay. The first one is road to another playoff loss to a dash, another playoff loss.
That's pretty good.
Okay. Um, the Hawk to us, but the, and I've seen this go around a lot.
Everybody's like, Oh, Hawk to, of course, everybody's going to use that, but do it Hawk to a like Hockinson.
So HOCK there, you got to draft both those players, right?
And then you have to draft both of them.
Obviously, uh, Mayfield of dreams.
I threw that one in there for my producers, huge Baker, Mayfield fan, Stan, um, Laporta potty.
That's a pretty good one too.
Yep. That's good. Uh, that this is one of my favorites.
That's what Shaheed said.
Like that's what she said.
I like that one. Oh my God.
It's JSN born. That's pretty good.
Okay. Yep. Mostard on the beat.
Well, this one's most of it on the beat home because you've heard of mustard on the beat, the little rap intro.
I like that one too.
Uh, you'd be Kaya, Justin Tucker, very Taylor park boys.
Okay. It's like a five for creativity.
Netflix, Netflix and Hill.
That's pretty good.
And my personal favorite, you guys, this will be my fantasy team name for the foreseeable future.
We know Tyree kill story in the off season.
This is Tyreeks points per conception.
Oh gosh. You can listen to the offensive line ad free right now by joining wondering plus in the wondering app or on apple podcasts.
