One more weekend left with The NFL As We Know It, since next year the league realigns. Both Central divisions disappear, to be replaced by pairs of North and South. Old cartographic fun will end: The NFC West will no longer sport four of five teams playing east of the Mississippi. New cartographic fun awaits: The Indianapolis Colts, now in the AFC East though located in the Midwest, will move to the AFC South though still, as best as can be determined, located in the Midwest.

These self-same Horsies are one of the big winners of realignment, leaving a frost-bound division—and don't worry about Buffalo, Wilson Stadium will have all its snow shoveled in plenty of time for the September 2002 home opener—to join a new sun-loving grouping. This means Peyton Manning, who played in warm weather in high school (Louisiana) and college (Tennessee), and has always looked bad in the cold, will now perform almost his entire remaining career either indoors (the Colts' dome) or at Southern venues. Peyton will both be happier and perhaps enjoy a longer run. Note that Jim Kelly and Dan Marino, both Pennsylvania tough guys by birth, came out of college the same year. Kelly, who played (and practiced, equally important) in the Erie County cold, had to hang it up four years before Marino, who spent his seasons in the Miami shirtsleeves clime.

City of Tampa will similarly benefit from its exit from the frosty NFC Central, as a previous TMQ explained. Now the Bucs, perennial losers when the kickoff temperature is below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, will almost never play in the cold; endless crowds in sun block and halter tops will be their fate. Meanwhile, the northernmost non-dome clubs—Bay of Green, Buffalo, Chicago, New York A & B, New England, Philly—will pretty much slam into each other week in week out, losing most division-quirk excuses for annual flights toward the Sunbelt. Of course, cold builds character.

Though the league did a good job with realignment, TMQ feels a bit misty for the storied annual home-and-home series now concluding. No more annual sets of Bucs-Packers, Colts-Jets, Pittsburgh-Flaming Thumbtacks or Rams-Falcons games. The good news is that the league did take cartographic liberties to preserve three classic home-and-home rivalries—Raiders-Chiefs, Persons-'Girls and Bills-Dolphins will continue long after you and I have shuffled off this mortal coil and gone on to try to scalp tickets to meet the football gods.

Realignment Folly: The Houston Texans, who debut next year, petitioned to be placed into the same conference as Pittsburgh on the grounds that Texans-Steelers is an established rivalry equal to Raiders-Chiefs. Yes, Oilers-Steelers was once a hot series. But the Texans don't exist.How can they claim an established rivalry?

In other NFL news, here's the difference between the NFL and the BCS: The Bowl Championship Series designed an incredibly scientifically advanced computer formula able to choose, as No. 2 in the country overall, a team that finished third in its own conference. When you see Nebraska take the field at the Rose Bowl, keep this in mind about computer projections on the economy, global warming, etc.

In defense of Nebraska, it might be said that if college were the NFL, there would be no controversy. The Huskers finished with one defeat, Colorado finished with two; in the NFL, it would be undisputed that Nebraska would seed higher in the playoffs, regardless of how many points it lost to Colorado by. This would seem a clinching argument.

Here's why it isn't—Nebraska played eight home games,versus four on the road. The Huskers schedule was a hoax. Colleges devise most of their schedules on the free market: It's whatever you can get opponents to agree to. Nebraska officials essentially bribed teams to come to Lincoln by offering them attractive shares of the automatic-sellout gate receipts; the result is an ersatz record for the Huskers, since the odds of winning at home at much greater than on the road. Nebraska gamed the BCS. Colorado by contrast played six at home, six on the road, and for being a straight-arrow was punished by the BCS computer.

So, if college were the NFL, Nebraska would notbe playing in the Rose Bowl. Nebraska's record would be tossed out by the NFL as counterfeit, and Colorado would be in the title event, where it belongs.

Best of the Week. Best Blitz: TMQ, of course, loves the blitz. Inconsistent, you protest? Kiss 'Em When They're Up, Kick 'Em When They're Down—traditional media saying. (Actually the "kiss" part of that traditional saying is somewhat more Monica-oriented—c.f., any coverage of Web sites in 1998, or anything filed from the White House in the first year of any administration. But, there is the matter of decorum.)