Jerry Maguire (1996) lost in the opening round. We here at The Great American Rivalry Series debated whether it was actually a football movie. Most said, no. And so it lost to Remember The Titans (2000).

If we had that debate then, we must debate The Blind Side (2009). Our central logic was that if you replaced football with any other sport Jerry Maguire would still be the same movie, and The Blind Side is exactly the same.

How may football scenes are there in the film? And of those, how many are actually ABOUT football and not just a practice scene that Sandra Bullock wanders into, where the scene is about something entirely different?

The Blind Side is about a family accepting this desperate young man into their lives and helping him achieve a better life. Plain and simple. I’m not here to debate its merits (although I’m not a fan), but it isn’t a football movie.

Therefore, it should lose to a pretty good ACTUAL football movie in Friday Night Lights (2004). Whatever you think of that film, it lives and breathes football.