Erin Andrews knows better than most that there's no I in team. Which is why the NFL broadcaster wants to highlight everyone on her household roster, including her nanny.  

Because when the 46-year-old was preparing to return to the sidelines after she and husband Jarret Stoll welcomed son Mack last June, she remembers telling her nanny how bad she felt talking about how she quote-unquote had it all, when her support system was a key piece of the puzzle. 

Which is when her nanny nudged her to mention the whole parenting squad. 

"So many people don't talk about it," Andrews noted in an exclusive interview with E! News, "so it gives out this weird picture that I got it all. I can deal with a 10-month-old, I can deal with a husband, I can do it."

But the reality, says the sportscaster, is that sometimes she and the former Los Angeles Kings centre, 41, fumble the ball. "I look over at my dog and I'm like, 'Did you eat?'" she explained of her the-struggle-is-real moments. "And then I've got to be in two different cities in one week and so forth and it's impossible to do." 

So, yes, she's got a strong team doing some blocking for her. 

"People have all sorts of help, whether it's daycare, a church group, their mom, a relative," Andrews explained. "So I think it is really important to just be like, 'I don't have it all together.' I feel like honesty is the best way and why try to candy coat and make it look so simple?"

Instead, she aims to share her full playbook, being transparent about everything from the Arm & Hammer deep clean laundry detergent she relies on to get avocado and squash out of her clothes following Mack's post-meal cuddles to her extensions. "This isn't even real hair!" she said, gesturing to her flawless tresses. "I mean, let's just be honest about the whole thing, you know?" 

Because as much as parents-to-be can study that proverbial game film, it's nothing like the on-the-field experience. 

"When we had him I was like, our life isn't going to change, we have somebody living with us, we got it," Andrews said of attempting to balance a newborn with her travel schedule and Stoll's gig working in player development with the Kings. "And no." 

Though she has discovered there's an upside to being honest about her perceived shortcomings. 

After speaking on her and friend Charissa Thompson's Calm Down podcast about parenting Mack and "how I really struggle when he's throwing a fit in the morning that he doesn't want to eat his food," said Andrews, a girlfriend suggested she go and read the comments on the Instagram post.

"And it was so many moms that were just like, 'Stop. Don't be so hard. We don't have it figured out and our kids are 17 and 18 years old," recounted the Maine native. "So it turns out being honest and not putting a filter over things really resonates with people."

Among her unvarnished takes: The mom guilt is real. 

"Last year on the field was really, really hard for me because I felt like I was missing things," noted Andrews, who still laments not being able to join her boys at the Kings' holiday party. "Now I'm hearing from girlfriends, it's only going to get worse, because then they're going to start to recognize you're leaving."

She has her go-to plays, of course. "I'm glued to my Nanit to watch him," she said of keeping tabs from afar. And, "FaceTime is massive. He gets so excited about a FaceTime ring. He knows exactly what it is." 

That doesn't always dull the ache of, say, spending her first Mother's Day away from her little guy because she had to catch a 6 a.m. flight to New York City to do press for Fox Sports.

"I expect my bosses to take me out for dinner that night," she joked. "No pressure guys!" And she knows the other men will come through with some sweet gestures. "Mack's a really good online shopper," she cracked. "He crushed Christmas last year, even though he was, like, six months old. He killed it." 

And in her toughest moments, she reminds herself that Mack gets to see his mom crush it at work. 

Thanks to the Taylor Swift effect ensuring hordes of new football fans are enchanted with the sport, "You do have a lot of eyes on you, including my 10-month-old son," noted Andrews. "And as much as I feel bad about maybe I'm not there for every little thing, it's pretty cool that he'll know that his mom works her tail off." 

Because much like the players selected in the last rounds of the draft, "I want to prove I belong," said Andrews. Even after suiting up for more than two decades, "I always think to myself, there's always somebody right around the corner that can come and replace me. So I work really, really hard." 

That work hard, play hard mentality means she's more than a little exhausted. ("We're experiencing our first runny nose, so I'm like, 'Oh my God, is it an ear infection?'" she admitted of recent sleepless nights.) But the wins definitely make up for any lost yardage. 

"He's learned how to wave, which is really cute," she said of the highlight reel. "He's a massive flirt, any female that walks in the room, he wants you to lock eyes on him. But then we do this whole shy bit."

While she knows she has some time before her little man is actually playing the field, she's thrilled she gets to watch from the sidelines. "It's fascinating," Andrews marveled, "how just every single day, something is new."