You can always turn to or to get you in the mood for the upcoming game... or to command your attention in case of a blowout. If you're more inclined toward casual games, though, you've got plenty of football-themed options--including one must-have game for the pigskin set.

(Image Caption: Kicking It Up a Notch: In the past year, Jirbo has improved both its Paper Football (pictured here) and iFootball games to iron out some of the more annoying flaws.)

First, though, let's examine some other contenders, most notably that have undergone enough improvements in the ensuing 12 months to merit a second look. and --both, as you may have deduced, from --were pretty poor offerings when I looked at them last year. A variation on the old paper football game where you slide the ball from one end of a desk to another--Paper Football recreates the desktop playing surface while iFootball uses an actual gridiron--Jirbo's games suffered from flaws the last time I played. Most notably, in two-player games, Player Two had more difficult time scoring and, as a result, winning. That's since been corrected, and iFootball has further moved the ball forward by improving its graphics. The games are still flawed: they consist of 30-second quarters, but with no shot clock it's easy for the person who's in the lead to simply run out the clock. What's more, Player Two still has to flip the phone around to attempt an extra point after scoring. But at least Paper Football and iFootball no longer feel rigged.

I was less critical toward last year, though game still suffered from limitations. In this game, you've got four downs to advance ball 10 yards. Fail to move the chains, and the game's over. But if you succeed, you can keep scoring touchdowns throughout the game's four one-minute quarters. It was fun, but you could only call passing plays, and the computer-run defense was pretty easy to beat.

(Image Caption: Three Yards and a Cloud of Pixels: X's and O's Football now features running plays, though the blue-helmeted defenders haven't upped their game any.)