As the whole country gets ready for Super Bowl XLIII, a YouTube collection of NFL.com’s “Pick Me” fantasy football commercials has been getting linked to quite a bit recently. (As of 12:30 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, the video below had drawn nearly 4.3 million views, including two by me.)

The spots played in advance of this NFL season and featured a number of NFL players performing trick photography stunts on and off the practice field. I could descirbe them here, but it’s better to just let you watch the thoroughly enjoyable video.

Although the commercials can be enjoyed by football fans and non-fans alike, knowledgeable fantasy players might find a bit more humor in them. Namely:

– Now we know why New England’s Laurence Maroney can’t keep his stupid shoulder healthy.

– Someone with NFL.com must not have checked out the career completion rate of Washington quarterback Jason Campbell (59.7 percent) before holding him up as a beacon of accuracy.

– Marc Bulger can apparently still grip and throw a football at times. Somehow he even managed to get four throws off in his commercial without getting sacked.

Enjoy the game.

Score another one for fantasy not qualifying as gambling.

Maryland state delegate Democrat John Olszewski has proposed a bill that would allow residents of his states to accept winning cash sums for fantasy sports victories. Currently, the games are lumped in with gambling under state law, leaving Maryland as one of a handful of states in which fantasy players can only compete for free.

“This is an issue where Congress said this isn’t gambling, a vast majority of states allow it, and it seems to make sense to allow Marylanders to have the same opportunity,” Olszewski told The Examiner of Baltimore. “For me, it’s a matter of equity. If people in Virginia and D.C. can play for prizes, why can’t we?”

Good question. The federal Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act of 2006 cracked down on payouts from online gambling — and specifically stated that fantasy sports are not gambling.

Although there are some high-stakes leagues and various levels of financial commitment and compensation, fantasy sports are games of skill that most people play for pride and bragging rights first and maybe economic incentives somewhere beyond that.

Here’s hoping not only that the Maryland bill gets adopted, but that it leads to similar measures in similarly restrictive states such as Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana and Vermont.

Voted Best New Website

by the Fantasy Sports Trade Association