NFL RedZone will keep your attention

As if we don't already have plenty of reasons to watch too much football on television, the NFL has given us yet another.

If you have access to the NFL's Network's new channel NFL RedZone, check it out. You just might find yourself watching it for entire Sunday afternoons.

(It's on Sundays from 11 a.m. MT through the end of the afternoon games.)

RedZone is the equivalent of CBS's coverage of the early rounds of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. It's a studio show that keeps you updated on every NFL game.

But more than just updating you on scores, RedZone switches from game to game to show you what's happening. With an emphasis on what's happening when a team is in scoring position — thus the name, RedZone.

All of the game coverage is from live telecasts on CBS and Fox. But it's almost dizzying as RedZone takes you from game to game to game.

And, while you're not going to be able to see complete games, it's a way for fans to keep track of what their favorite team is doing.

This past weekend, Utah viewers got to see Kansas City at Philadelphia, Denver at Oakland, Atlanta at New England and Indianapolis at Arizona. Unless you have RedZone, in which case you could see scoring plays in every game.

(Except for blowouts. Again, much like CBS's NCAA tournament coverage, games in which the outcome is no longer in doubt get considerably less attention.)

One game local viewers didn't get to see was the San Francisco at Minnesota matchup. And that featured the Play of the Day — Vikings QB Brett Favre's last-second, game-winning touchdown pass.

I saw it live on RedZone. And it sold me on the channel.

NFL RedZone is available on Dish Network and some cable systems as part of an upgraded (aka more expensive) programming package. It is only available on DirecTV if you subscribe to the NFL Sunday Ticket.

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: Judging by Utahns' voting record, most local football fans aren't fans of political strategist James Carville, who engineered Bill Clinton's successful White House bid.

And yet those same fans probably find themselves agreeing with what Carville said on CBS C's "The Tony Barnhart Show."

"Of course I'm a playoff guy," Carville said. "If you want to know just how stupid this whole system is, the coaches poll has Penn State ranked above Iowa. This is the beautiful one — they have Cal ranked higher then Oregon. Last week they had BYU ranked higher than Florida State. How can anyone with a straight face defend the poll? ... They have got to turn this thing around. And they can do it within the existing bowl structure. … This system is no good. I pull against it every time. ... That's the one thing I pull for more than anything in college football, that the BCS just turns into a big, rotten mess."

e-mail: pierce@desnews.com