Reid Kerr

I’m not sure where you are these days, dear readers. I don’t know if you’re fully quarantined, or stay-at-home’d, or just home and bored, but let’s stay safe out there. Wash your hands, stay inside, and if anyone gets close enough to you to head butt them, feel free to do so.

(Please note that’s a joke, and not intended to be legal advice. Consult your attorney before listening to me about anything.)

These days, everything seems to be about leftovers. My fridge is full of them, when the lockdown started I figured with no eating out or fast food, I would actually be a little healthier. Two weeks later, housebound boredom has somehow translated into eating six meals a day, with four of those containing pasta.

The NFL is currently full of leftovers as well, with the big wave of free agency over and talented players still hanging out, waiting to make a roster. There’s three former number-one picks still unsigned, and the only games on television are reruns.

I’ve got quite a few leftovers for this column, too. Every week when I write, there’s always a couple of lines I come up with that for one reason or another don’t make it into the column.

So with that in mind, here’s my 10 best leftover lines from this last year.

10. Thing I don’t need to see in a game story: “Blaine Gabbert has struggled.” Uh, yeah. That’s what he does. It’s like saying “Grimace is purple.” You’re just wasting words, sports writer.

9. How many years has the top quarterback drafted actually turned into the best quarterback? Maybe twice in the last 10 years, not counting drafts where every quarterback was a miss. You never know. Sometimes it’s the coach, sometimes it’s the system, sometimes it’s just a diet of cheeseburgers and cough syrup.

8. A Bill Belichick press conference after a loss sounds a lot like people interviewing Dick Cheney during a no-anesthesia colonoscopy.

7. Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy always looks like he ends his press conferences by chugging a Coors and crushing the can against his head, then driving off in his El Camino.

6. Can we stop saying that John Elway knows quarterbacks? There’s a difference between being a Hall of Fame quarterback, and being able to draft or sign one. Elway’s got a draft track record as ugly as Nicolas Cage’s IMDB page.

5. Question: Why is your “wagering concierge” called “Formerly Fat Tony?”

Answer: Well, he used to just go by “Fat Tony,” but he lost a lot of weight. I asked him about it and he said “I had one a dem…whattaya call em’s? A stomach overpass.” He’s a really nice guy, though, especially for a man whose business office appears to be the corner booth at a Waffle House.

4. Houston coach and General Manager Bill O’Brien is the guy at your weekly poker game who wants to be cool by wearing mirrored shades, but doesn’t realize he’s showing you his cards. It’s almost a sin to let him keep his money.

3. I’m enjoying everyone talking about Joe Burrow as the next coming, but let’s not forget there are no sure-fire quarterback picks who weren’t named “Manning.” And one of them, people still complain about. Nothing’s ever a guarantee in the NFL, people. First-round quarterbacks are still a coin flip.

2. Playing against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs is like playing video games against a sleepy teenager. You get a big lead while he spends the first quarter waking up, eating Skittles and snorting Pixie Stix while he’s drinking a distilled formula of Jolt Cola. By the second quarter his pulse is a Ramones song, and he’s pushing buttons you don’t even have on your controller.

And my number one leftover line…

1. Jason Garrett isn’t exactly lighting a fire under this Dallas Cowboys team. Well, unless you count the one in the dumpster.

Reid Kerr reminds you to check in on your friends and family during isolation, just like every single place you’ve ever given your email is checking in on you. Reid’s second book, “I Hate It Here: A Love Story,” is out now on Amazon.com. You can always tweet questions, comments, and angry messages to him at @reidaboutit.