Why they still play the games

Last weekend in the NFL was a case in point as to why we still bother to actually play out the games, even in this day and age of intensive statistics, research and computer analysis on sporting events. Against the odds and the collected wisdom of the pundits and prognosticators, two underdogs (the San Diego Chargers and New York Giants) knocked off heavily-favoured teams (the Indianapolis Colts and Dallas Cowboys). The classic "any given Sunday" line became true again, which is a great thing for both the league and sport in general. Hopefully, this will continue: it will certainly make next week's
games interesting if the Chargers and Giants can at least give the Patriots and Packers a run for their money. All sense, odds, and logical thought again favours the home teams, but as this past week showed, the league can't simply be turned over to the statisticians and computers. It should be a great round of games.

Links of the day:
- Stephen Brunt has a great piece in the Globe and Mail on the Patriots
- Bill Simmons went 3 for 4 straight-up, amazing considering the two underdog wins: he even violated his own rule by taking Eli Manning and the Giants!
- The Vancouver Province's Marc Weber has a great piece on yesterday's decision to allow Canadian schools to apply for NCAA Division II membership (I'll have a story on this in Friday's Queen's Journal).
- James Mirtle weighs in on the NCAA situation on The CIS Blog
- Neate Sager has an interesting angle on how many Canadians are lost to the NCAA already
- Ben Knight on the atrocious current form of Liverpool FC