Reid Kerr

Happy Championship weekend, dear readers. In honor of the occasion, I’ve already called in sick to work on Monday. Pro tip, always say there’s something vaguely wrong with you that they can’t check, like a stomachache, or “the willies,” or you’ve come down with the rockin’ pneumonia and the boogie-woogie flu.

There’s four teams left standing, two coaching jobs open, and a million questions left to be answered about this NFL season, so let’s get to it.

Question: What do you think about the Chargers hiring Jim Harbaugh?

Answer: We knew this was going to happen somewhere in the this NFL hiring cycle. Harbaugh finally won a national championship, and his contract demand with Michigan was basically “No matter what the NCAA says, you can’t fire me or take my money, even if I kill somebody.” He wanted to be bulletproof, and that’s just not feasible for a guy who got suspended twice last year and interviews for NFL jobs like it’s a biological imperative.

Every year when the jobs open up, we wonder if it would be better to take over a team with a starting quarterback in place and no salary cap room, or one with draft picks and money to spend but no definite starter. I’m thinking Harbaugh’s choice shows us that the quarterback is always the big draw.

Q: How bad was that loss for the Texans?

A: Oh, not bad at all. It was a miracle they got that far, making the second round of the playoffs with a first-year coach, signal caller, quarterback, and hopeful fanbase. Much like the humidity, the optimism is off the charts in Houston.

Q: Are the Bills ever going to win a Super Bowl?

A: I’m a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan, so I can answer this one definitively. No. The Bills finally have their first generational-talent quarterback since the last time Jim Kelly was carted off the field, only to find out that at least three other teams in the AFC also have theirs. The Bills are the NFL’s Chicago Cubs. The curse will be lifted someday long in the future. However, depending on the method of the apocalypse, only the zombies or Terminators will be around to see it.

Q: Are you surprised Jerry Jones kept Mike McCarthy?

A: I’ll see your question, and ask you another one. Are you ever surprised by anything Jerry Jones does? Or more precisely, doesn’t do? I actually think keeping things are is the best way to go here, keep your team intact and try and make a run. Maybe you get lucky and the Niners fall apart like the Eagles. Maybe not, and you get crushed in the playoffs yet again. But if you start over at coach or quarterback, you start all over again.

Q: Why isn’t Bill Belichick getting another coaching job?

A: It’s a hard lesson to learn, but you can be great in your prime, and a legend when you’re done. In between, you can still get passed by. It happened to Tom Landry. It happened to Chuck Noll. And based on his post-Brady resume, it’s happened to Belichick.

Q: What’s left?

A: Washington’s got some good qualities, most importantly a new owner. And in Seattle, I’m not sure what’s going on there. It’s a huge surprise because Pete Carroll was the face of that team for many years. Ironically, the city most associated with a beverage that makes you all shaky was a model of stability over that time. For him to be out with no immediate new coach to take over is a bit shocking.

Q: Who’ve you got in the Super Bowl?

A: Well, thank you for asking, because that gives me a chance to point out that I picked Baltimore to beat San Francisco in my preseason predictions. Depending on how this week goes, I may bring that up a few hundred times in the next couple of weeks, as evidence of the one time in 50-plus years of football-watching that I actually got it right.

Time for my official championship round picks.Last week, I went 3-1, and 2-2 against the Vegas spread. In my defense, if the Bucs had made that two-point conversion, I’d be pricing boats right now. I’m now 6-4, and 5-5 against Vegas in the playoffs. Lesson learned there. As always, these are for the purposes of comedic discussion only. No wagering.

Kansas City (+4) at Baltimore: I can’t imagine this, but in a matchup of MVP quarterbacks, this one is going to come down to the defenses. Edge to Baltimore, slightly.

Pick: Ravens to win and cover, winning by five or more.

Detroit (+7) at San Francisco: Let’s face it, Detroit could be down by two touchdowns after the coin flip and lose this one by a hundred, and it would still be the best season the Lions have ever seen.

Pick: 49ers to win but not cover, winning by six or fewer points.

So there you have it, I’m picking two teams, but rooting for the others. That’s the kind of lose-lose scenario I find myself in this week. Good luck everybody.

Reid Kerr is excited about the new Beverly Hills Cop movie because he saw the first one, but also very wary of it because he saw the third one. You can always tweet questions, comments, and angry messages to him at @reidaboutit.