I'm not interested in Donnie Edwards' seven-year tackling statistics. I'm only interested in the type of player he is (currently) and the player he may be in the future.

What was very alarming to us is when we get our end-of-the-year statistics in. Although we are down overall, we see an increase of cars that were taken after being left running unattended ... people warming up cars, people running into a store quickly.

With those statistics, it's quite an honor.

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

Maybe a nation that consumes as much booze and dope as we do and has our kind of divorce statistics should pipe down about ''character issues.'' Either that or just go ahead and determine the presidency with three-legged races and pie-eating contests. It would make better TV.

While most of us are comfortable acknowledging that luck plays a role in what we do, we have difficulty assessing its role after the fact. Once something has occurred and we can put together a story to explain it, it starts to seem like the outcome was predestined. Statistics don't appeal to our need to understand cause and effect, which is why they are so frequently ignored or misinterpreted. Stories, on the other hand, are a rich means to communicate precisely because they emphasize cause and effect.