Feeling lost in life? Need help with your team? Pete Overzet is here to help and answer your burning questions about life, love and fantasy football…

Dear Pete, what if the rest of life was like professional sports? For example, I'm an ER doctor. What if my hospital, Hospital X, decides it really needs a plastic surgeon. So they trade me to Hospital Z, along with two new docs coming out of next year's graduating class, in exchange for a plastic surgeon and a family practice doc. Now, I have to move, sign a new contract, meet and work with a new team ... Wild. Could apply to any other career/industry! — Doc On The Trade Block

DEAR DOC ON THE TRADE BLOCK: Hot damn! I love this hypothetical and am also terrified by it. You’ve sent my brain down a rabbit hole of twisted possibilities …

Imagine you go to get a haircut only to find out your talented barber was traded to a luxury resort in the Maldives in exchange for multiple hair stylists.

Or you show up to your local coffee shop only to learn that your barista was flipped to a nearby Starbucks in a package deal that included a new espresso machine, cash considerations and the rights to their next five applicants. 

Sounds thrilling … and also like a total nightmare. Most companies can barely get their employees to return to the office after going remote for the pandemic. Imagine how much trouble they'd have hiring if future employees knew they could be shuffled off to another part of the area or even country on a moment's notice?

(That said, if you're reading this, Fantasy Life, I'm willing to be "traded" to Hawaii or Costa Rica. I'd even settle for San Diego at this point. I'm ready to pahk my cah somewhere else than Hahvad Yahd.)

It’s also pretty funny to reverse the hypothetical and imagine NFL players with “normal” jobs …

Feb 1, 2024; Orlando, FL, USA; Buffalo Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs (14) participates in the NFL Pro Bowl Skills Competition at the UCF NIcholson Fieldhouse. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports

Stefon Diggs (Marketing Analyst at Oracle) gets passed over for a promotion to become the Director of Marketing, so he rage-skips the company’s quarterly meeting and posts a cryptic message on the cork board in the breakroom:

“Survival was my only hope, success my only revenge.”

Or Aaron Rodgers (lead singer for a wedding cover band) gets drunk at a gig, hits on the bride, throws up on the cake and blames his bassist and drummer as he gets dragged out of the venue. 

Or Kyle Pitts (violinist prodigy) gets recruited by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, but instead of him playing the violin, they have him selling hot dogs during intermission instead … until the orchestra brings in a new conductor from Vienna (and one from the state of Washington, too!) and a new concertmaster from London who rehabilitates Pitts' career. 

I think it's safe to say that we should all be thankful for our employment rights and appreciate the chaos that NFL players endure both on and off the field … although I would watch a reality show featuring Pitts playing in an orchestra. Imagine what he could do with that majestic wingspan in the pit. 

Dear Pete, I named my dog Kelce after my favorite TE, who took me to a fantasy football championship in 2019. Now, every Chiefs game, my Kelce zooms, howls, barks whenever he hears his name mentioned on the telecast. It got out of control this past winter during their Super Bowl run. I can't watch the NFL with my dog anymore. He needs a new name. Pete, will you please suggest a name that will not give my dog fits when I watch the NFL? — Buried by Barks 

DEAR BARKS: Naming your dog after an NFL player is all fun and games until you realize they have a Pavlovian barking response to PPR production. 

It seems vaguely cruel to change your poor dog’s name just for some peace and quiet once a week, so let’s get creative. A few potential solutions:

  • Hope and pray the team unleashes rookie WR Xavier Worthy and he steals away some of Kelce’s targets, reducing your pooch’s strong BPG (barks per game) numbers.
  • Try the foreign language broadcast. Maybe the Italian pronunciation of “Kelce” will be less triggering for your Kelce. “Mama mia! Travis Kelce!”
  • Get Kelce some noise canceling headphones for dogs. You might think I just made this up, but I looked it up on Amazon. They exist. … And honestly, they're pretty fashionable. Let Kelce enjoy some quiet time next time you are watching a Chiefs game.

Teddy, 3, models a pair of noise-canceling headphones in the basement of her Grosse Pointe home on June 10, 2022. To ease the anxiety her dog Emma, Kirsten Brand created Pawnix, a noise-canceling headset for dogs that deputed on the hit-TV show Shark Tank in March. The $199 headphones come in a variety of dog-head sizes and are equipped with Bluetooth and volume control to prevent hearing damage. Pawnix provides a Spotify playlist of calming songs on its website. 

If you really do need to go the new name route, though, I recommend “Waller.” You’ll never have to worry about his name being mentioned again. 

Dear Pete, in today's NFL, with the usage and perceived value of RBs, will Emmitt Smith's rushing record ever be broken? Consider this: Smith rushed for 18,355 yards over 15 seasons. That's 1,224 yards per season. The next-closest active players are Derrick Henry (9,502) and Zeke Elliott (8,904). Both those backs are in their twilight and would need to average over 1,000 yards per season … for nine more years. Records are made to be broken, but this one seems like one that is going to stand for a long time. What are your thoughts? — Doug Wolf, Mr. Restless About Records

DEAR DOUG WOLF: First of all, great name. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were a private detective in a British crime novel.

You might actually be a Sherlock, though, because I think you’re onto something. Over the past few years, we’ve seen the league shift away from ground-and-pound offenses to aerial attacks in which WRs are king and RBs are more optimally deployed through the air.

It would be basically impossible for any current NFL RB to surpass Smith’s record considering the average career of an NFL RB is now 2.57 years. Yes, you read that correctly: 2.57 years. Even with the 2024 free agency featuring a renaissance for veteran RBs — Henry, Josh Jacobs, Saquon Barkley and D'Andre Swift all earned nice paydays — the shelf life of a RB has never been shorter. 

Feb 11, 2022; Los Angeles, CA, USA; NFL former player Emmitt Smith during the NFL Alumni Legends Party Presented by USA TODAY NETWORK Ventures at Avalon Hollywood. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Not to mention, teams continue to devalue the position. In the 2024 NFL draft, we didn't see a RB come off the board until Jonathan Brooks at pick 46, the second-longest wait for a first RB to come off the board ever (Bishop Sankey was the longest wait at 54 in 2014). 

What’s really interesting is that we are finally seeing this NFL sea change carry over to fantasy drafts. Within this magazine, you'll find an in-depth piece about Zero RB, a draft strategy which allows drafters to take advantage of this dynamic by prioritizing other positions earlier in their drafts. 

RBs used to dominate the first round of fantasy drafts, but now it's ruled by WRs. Only Christian McCaffrey — a unicorn in this current landscape of the NFL — has withstood the test of time at the top of fantasy drafts. And even that is because of his receiving prowess, not his rushing. 

That’s a long way of saying that you are safe to buy that Emmitt Smith autographed mini helmet without worrying about his rushing record being toppled.

The real question is whether one of these new superstar WRs has a chance to surpass Jerry Rice’s insane 22,895 career receiving yards mark? Yeah, that’s probably not going to happen, either. Justin Jefferson — widely regarded to be the most talented WR in the league — has 5,899 career receiving yards over four years for an average of 1,474 yards per season. He'd need to keep up that pace for more than 11 years to surpass Rice.

Welp, maybe some (NFL) records aren't meant to be broken?