The sports movie genre is pretty bipolar. Sports movies jump from the maudlin (“Rudy! Rudy!”) to the asinine (“Dogs can’t play basketball!”) with very few steps in between. Division III: Football’s Finest is definitely closer to the latter, but holds on to reality enough to stay out of Air Bud territory (a good call, considering how that terrain is marked).

That is not to say the movie does not reach heights of ridiculousness. With Andy Dick, Paul Henderson, and no less than four MadTV alumni in the cast, Division III is host to several characters that would seem over-the-top in a cartoon, but the film stays grounded enough to be aware of its own silliness. Most importantly, Division III is very funny, easily on par with a first-tier Happy Madison comedy.

Expect first-time feature director Marshall Cook, pulling quadruple duty here, to graduate to the big leagues in no time at all. His comic instincts are good both on camera, as a slacker quarterback, and off, directing, editing, and co-writing (along with Dick and Henderson). Thanks to Cook and company, most of the gags hit home, and the movie never dwells on those that don’t.

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When I was growing up it was always ABC’s Monday Night Football with Howard Cosell, “Dandy” Don Meredith and Frank Gifford. Meredith would often sing ‘Turn out the Lights, the partys over” as one team or another dominated the proceedings and Cosell would often clash with Meredith or insult one or more players. It was fun and it seemed like anything could happen at any moment.

That was then, this is now. Monday Night Football has a home on ESPN and has been there since 2006. Now, it seems, ESPN is determined to hold on to the venerable franchise and has announced a new agreement to keep it until 2021. The cost? A reported $15 Billion.

The new agreement will cost ESPN 73% more than its previous NFL deal which likely means the Disney-owned sports channel will ask cable and satellite companies to pay more. Some other terms of the new deal kick off immediately.

Today ESPN’s NFL Live expands to an hour from a half hour. A discussion show based on fan-submitted questions, Audibles, also joins the Thursday night line up. This weekend Sunday NFL Countdown will run three hours, up from two.

On Tuesday ESPN2 will introduce a weekly, hour-long show NFL 32, followed on Friday by another weekly hour long show NFL Kickoff. Click through for all the details from the official ESPN press release.

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I don’t particularly like Sandra Bullock, and I really dislike sports movies, so logic dictates that I would not care for The Blind Side. I saw the trailer, and like everyone else I wrote this film off as a heaping pile of Hallmark Channel goo.

I gritted my teeth and vowed to trudge through the movie, and instead I got one of the biggest surprises (to me) of the year. The Blind Side is good. Really good. Sandra Bullock gives her best performance to date. The story is touching, inspirational and timely.

In the tradition of Rudy, The Rookie, Remember the Titans, and Hoosiers, The Blind Side is based on a true story. Michael Oher is wandering the streets in Memphis in the bitter cold clad only in shorts and a t-shirt, when the wealthy Tuohy family sees him. After the daughter recognizes him from her school, Leigh Anne Touhy (Sandra Bullock) demands that her husband pull over the car.

She offers him a couch to sleep on that night, but after she discovers he has nowhere to go and no clothing, she buys him a wardrobe and eventually offers him a room in their palatial mansion. The Tuohys eventually adopt Michael, who went  on to play football at Ole Miss, and currently plays for the Baltimore Ravens as a rookie tackle.

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