Yes, the ad wizards at Jerry Jones Heavy Manufacturing Concern, LLC, decided that their eleventy-billion dollar show palace, $14 hamburgers, live sex shows (NSFW), cheerleaders, and "Party Passes" (oh, and an NFL game) would not be enough to entertain the 80,000 people who bothered to show up for the 'Boys latest December nightmare. So at the start of the second half against the Chargers, they turned the 160' by 90' superstructure over midfield into a 3-D movie theater so that fans in attendance could experience the wonder of football with length, width and depth! It's like you're actually there!

Now stop and think about this for a second, since no one who works for the organization apparently did. In order to see 3-D images on a television, you need to wear special glasses—glasses that impair your vision of the real, physical world around you. This means that the Cowboys were literally asking fans to ignore the actual live football game taking place before their very eyes, so that they could watch it on television instead. For $300 a ticket. Because that would be more "realistic." The effect certainly is mind boggling.

Since many fans chose not to put on (or couldn't figure out?) the stupid glasses, the video replay board became a blurry red and blue mess to their eyes. According to reports, the loudest cheer of the day came when they finally shut it off halfway through the third quarter.

Of course, the dirty secret of JerryWorld's massive video board is that it so overshadows the playing field that most fans end up staring at it anyway, rather than the flesh-and-blood players on the field in front of them. (Granted, some don't have any choice.) I'm sure that thought will comfort DeMarcus Ware when he wakes up from his coma.

It's hard to see what Dallas Cowboys saw in 3D call [Dallas Morning News]
3D experiment falls flat at Cowboys Stadium [PFT]
Cowboys Stadium 3D scoreboard experiment doesn't go so well, turned off in less than seven minutes [Second image via Engadget]
"3-D" a "3-Dud" at Cowboys Stadium [WPMT]

The screen, which Titans punter AJ Trapasso pegged on Friday, hangs 90 feet above the field, which is just low enough to be in the way of seriously high punts. If it gets hit again the ball is ruled dead, the clock is set back and the play is done over. If it happens a lot this season, however, look for the league to force Jerry Jones to spend a couple million bucks to move it up 10 feet. [NFL via Engadget]

Dr. Priya Narasimhan of Carnegie Mellon University has developed the football and gloves, loading them up with wireless sensors that can precisely determine whether or not a ball hit the ground before being caught or whether or not someone had control of the ball before fumbling. It could also, using GPS, determine whether or not the ball cross the goal line. But the applications don't stop there.

Eventually, the same kind of sensors used in the gloves could be adapted to shoes, to measure stride and running patterns, or even shoulder pads, to calculate blocking positions and force.

The current version of the glove has 15 touch sensors on the fingers and palm, running to a wireless module on the back of the arm, said Adam Goldhammer of Richboro, Bucks County, a master's student in electrical engineering at Carnegie Mellon.

"Knowing these contact points can tell how a ball is being thrown and how different people throw," he said, "so you could train how someone is throwing to match how they should throw."

Currently, there are no teams or football organizations on board with the technology, but I wouldn't be surprised if a network got on board to help them create super-accurate animations and recreations of plays. [Post Gazette via Engadget]

The helmets are already being used at seven universities and five high schools, and the NFL is studying the technology, too. That's a good thing, because the average lifespan of NFL players is considerably shortened because of the appalling violence applied to many of their brains while playing the game. Now remind me, what was this post about again? And no, I'm not that Charles White. [PopSci]

The 55-inch limit cited by the NFL applies only to public showings of the Super Bowl, not private gatherings. According to U.S. copyright law, Josh is in the clear so long as he doesn't take his gigantic TV to a public place, or invite "a substantial number of persons" to his house—more than a normal circle of family and social acquaintances.

While the Explainer goes on to say that "you can show the game to a big crowd, provided you're not charging people" and are showing it on "a single receiving apparatus of a kind commonly used in private homes," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said that even admission-free "mass out-of-home viewings" are a no-no, and they will bust your ass. Hard.

So basically you should watch the game at home on your own big-ass TV, but don't tell anybody about it. Or better yet, watch it with your eyes closed. – Matt Buchanan

The (Super Bowl) party's over [IndyStar]
Is My Super Bowl Party Illegal? [Slate]

While the church fouled for sure (again, sorry) by initially planning to charge for the bash, even after making the event free to all who worship, the NFL refused to budge, saying the church's plans to show the game on a projector weren't kosher. What's strange here is the NFL's claim that copyright law "limits it to one TV no bigger than 55 inches."

Budding lawyers out there, is this just BS? Does this just apply to public viewings? Watching the game on a massive TV with lots of friends and even more booze is what the Super Bowl's all about, or at least that's what I've heard. I hate football. – Matt Buchanan

NFL won't let church show game [CNN/SI via Fark]

Some of you will be excited to know that Sprint will be broadcasting sixteen hours hours of live coverage from the NFL Network to their cellphone users during the April 29-30 draft, so you can see the draft live when you're in line at the grocery store, or watch clips of the prospective draft picks on demand as you wait for the bus; we're excited mainly because this gives us yet another way to ignore sports.

Got a cellphone? You might see NFL Draft live [USA Today, thanks Schuyler!]

Customers will benefit from the partnership by receiving on-the-fly data streams from Sprint's always-on network. The partnership, which may or may not be called CellNetSprintNFLX2006, depending on if that name is taken, will lead to upsourcing the upsense of the average Sprint user by giving them access to premium, high quality content with maximum experience-building blackbelt level service.

Sprint and the National Football League Ink First-of-Its-Kind, Exclusive Wireless Content and Sponsorship Deal - Delivering the Ultimate Fan Experience [Sprint via Lockergnome]