Thomas Jones scored his first 3 TDs (and perhaps his last 3 TDs) of the season Sunday.

If you are in one of my fantasy leagues and you’re looking for a good waiver wire pickup this week, just grab whomever I’m dropping from my roster. For the second week in a row, a player I cut in the days leading up to the games scored three touchdowns. Last week, it was DeAngelo Williams. This week, it was Thomas Jones. Of course, proceed at your own risk. After his trifecta the week before, Williams couldn’t even crack 30 yards rushing yesterday.

• Of course, while I cut Williams and Jones in one of my leagues, I would’ve killed to have either one of them in my other league this week. My starting backfield tandem in that league was Jonathan Stewart (6 carries, 12 yards) and Fred Taylor (3 carries, 10 yards, 1 lost fumble). That’s a total of -1 point from my running backs. What’s shocking is that I’m actually up by a point heading into tonight, but my opponent only needs two tackles from his defensive player to beat me. It wasn’t like I had a lot to choose from either. My backup RBs were Laurence Maroney (didn’t even get a carry) and Rudi Johnson (17 carries, 38 yards).
• Where have you gone, LaDainian Tomlinson? Once an almost guarantee for at least a TD a week, LT has failed to reach the end zone in four of six games this season and has surpassed 75 rushing yards only twice. He started fairly slow last season as well, but closed the year on a ridiculous roll.
• From a real football standpoint, Earnest Graham deserves all the praise in the world for volunteering to move to fullback in Sunday’s game against the Panthers after the Bucs’ regular fullback got injured. In fantasy football, however, he deserved to get stoned. Warrick Dunn ended up getting most of the carries and yards, though Graham did get a TD. Have no fear, though, as the Bucs will likely go find themselves a replacement fullback this week and move Graham back to his usual workhorse role.
• Oh Mike Shanahan, how I despise thee. So with Selvin Young out, you figure he would just plug Michael Pittman into Young’s role in the backfield-by-committee rotation, right? Wrong. Pittman, normally the goal-line back, got 20 carries, while Andre Hall, who usually splits carries with Young, didn’t get off the bench.
• You think the bye week in week 4 did Peyton Manning some good? In three games before the bye, he had 3 TDs and 4 INTs. In the two games since, he has 5 TDs and 1 INT.
• Where did all that great tight end play from last season go? Sure, Antonio Gates is still finding the end zone, and Jason Witten remains a big part of the Cowboys’ passing game. But look at the other top tight ends from last year: Tony Gonzalez hasn’t surpassed 55 yards in a game in 2008 after surpassing 1,100 last year. Kellen Winslow has been slowed by health issues and Derek Anderson. And Jeremy Shockey, who was supposed to bring a whole new dimension to the Saints’ offense, is injured. With such slim pickings, a good pickup might be Owen Daniels, who has piled up a good amount of yards but no TDs.