Reid Kerr

We’re now officially into the homestretch of the NFL season, and the “anything can happen” portion of our schedule. As the paper’s resident NFL expert, I usually get a lot of questions. They range from “How can you be wrong so often and still call yourself an expert?” to “What was it like playing with Van Halen, Sammy?”

These days, there are certain questions I seem to get a lot, so for the purposes of brevity let’s just pretend you ran into me pumping gas and I answered all of these for you.

Question: What’s your prediction for Dallas?

Answer: They’re loaded for this season, and as I’ve said, I don’t think getting Odell Beckham Jr. helps. It’ll all come down to the playoffs and matchups. They’re my clear-cut number two team in the NFC, and as we see every year, anything can happen in the postseason. This is a very well-built team. The only question now is if the Eagles have built a better one.

Q: Do you have any good news on Houston?

A: Yes, the season is almost over. The Texans have been following the Astros model of dumping talent and tanking for years, and it’s almost time to pay that off. Next year’s draft should finally get them a change for a young quarterback and some talent to surround him with. Whether or not you have any faith that the worst front office in the league is going to take advantage of that opportunity is another story.

Q: How do you feel about your Super Bowl picks?

A: Great! Both of them lost their quarterbacks last week. I’m afraid to pick new ones because with my luck, they might wind up with a Bubonic Plague outbreak.

Q: Who’s the MVP?

A: Owing to the fact that it’s always a quarterback, and usually whoever the new hot QB is, I’ll say Jalen Hurts wins it. I’d vote Mahomes though, pretty much the same as I would every year.

Q: What’s the most unexpected thing you saw so far?

A: The way the AFC West just parted like the Red Sea for the Chiefs. All three teams were supposed to be improved this year. Spoiler Alert? They weren’t, and the Chiefs are about to clinch the division with a month left to go.

Q: What’s the dumbest thing you’ve heard lately?

A: Oh, I’m on social media, so that’s a regularly updated record. But the big one last week is from college football, and “Georgia could beat (random number of) NFL teams.”

Georgia, or whoever else is at the top of the charts when this sentence is uttered, is a very good team. But every college team is composed of 22 year-olds. NFL teams are fully grown men who are professional football players. They don’t have to stop working out or watching game film to go take a Biology midterm. Maybe there’s a couple of kids on the team who could compete immediately at an NFL level, but for the most part, that game would be a slaughter.

Q: What’s the craziest story you’ve seen this year?

A: Well after Thursday night, I’m going with “The Ballad of Baker Mayfield.” If Baker retires before next Sunday, he’s guaranteed at least one semi-autobiographical feel-good Netflix movie.

Q: How are you so bad at picking games?

A: Practice, practice, practice.

Now on to the picks. Last week I went 4-1-1 straight up, and 3-3 against the Vegas spread. In my defense, I thought someone was going to win that Washington-NY Giants game. Lesson learned there. I’m now 48-32-1, and 36-43-2 against Vegas. As always, my picks are for the purposes of comedic discussion only. No wagering.

Houston (+17.5) at Dallas: This point spread says a lot, mostly that in a league based around parity, people are being asked to bet on whether the Texans can get within three possessions of the Cowboys.

Pick: Cowboys to win but not cover, winning by 17 or fewer points. I’m hoping Dallas will get tired of scoring.

Jacksonville (+3.5) at Tennessee: Jags with an injured Trevor Lawrence. Titans with an angry and empowered Mike Vrabel. This one doesn’t seem difficult to figure out.

Pick: Titans to win and cover, winning by four or more.

Minnesota (+2) at Detroit: The fact that the five-win Lions are a two-point favorite over the 10-win Vikings tells you that Vegas trusts the Vikes like I trust my neighbor’s homemade cough drops.

Pick: Vikings to win it outright.

Baltimore (+2) at Pittsburgh: How the Ravens play in this stretch without Lamar Jackson will go a long way toward his next contract, so I’m going to say Jackson will be on the sidelines rooting for his team in the same totally-pretending way that I root for my in-laws to visit at Christmas.

Pick: Ravens to win it outright.

Cleveland (+5.5) at Cincinnati: You know what bugs me? The way people pronounce “the Bengals” as “the Bangles.” It makes no sense, and it gets my hopes up for a Susannah Hoffs appearance.

Pick: Bengals to win and cover, winning by six or more points.

Kansas City (-9.5) at Denver: The Broncos offense is the absolute worst kind of offensive.

Pick: Chiefs to win and cover, winning by 10 or more.

I’ll also take the Patriots over the Cardinals, Seahawks over the Panthers, and a visit from Cousin Eddie over a visit from Santa. Good luck, everybody.

Reid Kerr will not bring you some figgy pudding, no matter how insistent your song gets. You can always tweet questions, comments, and angry messages to him at @reidaboutit.

TWITTER: @PhilHicksETFS