The National Football League and Sprint have been tied up in one form or fashion for years now, but the relationship is finally rounding third and heading for home. All mixed analogies aside, what we're saying is that the feature you've been clamoring for has finally arrived, and beginning tonight, select Sprint subscribers will be able to watch the entire Cleveland Browns vs. Denver Broncos tilt on their handset. Obviously, you'll need a Sprint TV-capable handset and an Everything Plan (or a $15 per month add-on) in order to tune in, but tonight's game -- which kicks off at 8:00PM ET on the NFL Network -- will be the first of eight games (televised solely on that network) to air via Sprint. Whether or not The Now Network can keep up with the action, however, remains to be seen.

Never mind the fact that these guys have to spend sixty-plus minutes every Sunday running up and down 100 yards of Astroturf, risking life and limb standing mere feet away from gigantic men pummeling one another for a little piece of inflated pigskin -- heading over to the sidelines to check the weather is apparently too much trouble for the men in the black and white stripes. Sprint has announced an agreement with the NFL to offer "wireless devices" of some sort to refs preloaded with a WeatherBug-driven alert app to warn them of incoming severe weather during games. You know, tornadoes and the like -- things that are liable to get a game postponed or canceled. That's cool and all, but if they get a Motorola Q9c before we do, we're gonna lose it.

Those of you patiently waiting for Sprint to officially launch (and make available) its rendition of the Motorola Q can finally breathe a sigh of relief, but you'll still have to wait just a bit longer to actually grab one. Slated to hit webstores "around mid-January" and retail outlets the month after, Sprint's Q isn't quite available to the masses just yet, but LAPTOP Mag got their palms around a pre-production release and promptly threw it on the testing block. Mimicking remarks we made earlier, reviewers noticed the lack of upgrades aside from the Sprint splash screen, logos, and unique "dark grey" hue, and they also found the "less rubberized" feel compared to Verizon's black version less enjoyable to handle. Noting the possibility of including a dedicated volume switch (as on the BlackJack), the crew was also let down by the omitted backlight underneath the keyboard, which Verizon's unit is blessed with. Additionally, surfing the web proved quite a bit slower when compared to Verizon's flavor, but Sprint suggested that "finalized units" wouldn't suffer the same fate. Nevertheless, not all was doom and gloom, as they did take note of the exclusive NFL Mobile functionality as well as the bundled Handmark application -- dubbed On Demand -- that loaded up "news, weather, directions, and other information optimized for the Moto Q's screen within seconds." Overall, this Q proved to be a bit of letdown considering what it could have been, and if only Sprint would've taken the time to add support for its Sprint TV and Music services, at least something would've stood out from the competition. As it stands, however, the Q still isn't a bad choice, and it was noted that Sprint's cheap unlimited data could swing contract-less buyers in its direction, but if you were hoping for a revamped, refreshed offering from big yellow, you'll be sorely disappointed.

Read - Motorola Q officially launches on Sprint
Read - LAPTOP Mag reviews Sprint's Motorola Q

For those anxiously awaiting that beloved kickoff in September, Sprint-Nextel has put together an excellent off-season deal that will save you $5.99/month. For those in the know -- and those still curious about this pigskin obsession -- NFL Mobile has not been bundled in with the Vision and Power Vision data plans in the past. All that changes for the 2006-2007 season as any normal data customer can now access all the functions previously reserved for paying fans. You'll get (almost) up-to-the-second updates of scores, stats, injuries, game-changing alerts, and even video highlights from in-game and post-game content. If you're an NFL fan and aren't tied up in one of those pesky multi-year contracts with some other provider, now would probably be a good time to break off a couple defenders -- like your significant other, for starters -- and take advantage of the signing bonus.

[Via MobileTracker]

Because missing even a second of this year's football draft could wreak havoc on your performance in the coming season's fantasy leagues, Sprint is thoughtfully broadcasting the "action" live to subscribers of their Sprint TV NFL Mobile package. While this news in and of itself is rather mundane (especially to us non-football fans), the fact that Sprint has exclusive wireless rights to the draft while Monday Night Football rights-holder ESPN is barred from streaming the broadcast to its Mobile ESPN subscribers is rather interesting, and could be indicative of future trends. Although the demand for mobile TV is still definitely up in the air, might there be a day when enough rabid football fans have 3G-enabled cellphones to make it profitable for wireless carriers to bid against traditional networks on the games themselves, and broadcast them exclusively to a mobile audience?

[Via Moco News]