Who does Thomas Jones have to blow in this league to get a little love?  5,697 total yards over the last four years has earned Jones a one-way ticket out of Chicago in favor of Cedric "BUI" Benson after the '06 season, and not even a gesture towards a contract extension with the Jets in '09.     

As a 7^th overall draft pick in 2000, he spent his first three years in the perennially abysmal Arizona Cardinal backfield.  Not understanding that you have to invest in your offensive line in conjunction with your backfield, the Cards shipped him to the Buccaneers in 2003 for some cat named Marquis Walker, who registered a total of zero catches thereafter (and actually had not registered one since the 2000 season).

Jones has been worth his 7^th overall billing from day one.  He has a knack for knowing when the designed play has failed and is able to re-direct and often turn something into nothing.  Ron Turner arrived in Chicago in '05 and installed a scheme that played heavily to this strength.  The result was Turner looking like a genius and Jones finally being able to display his talents to the tune of 1470 total yards and nine TDs... Jones was finally fantasy relevant.   He followed that up with a decent year (1364 total yards and six TDs) in 2006 despite 2005 4^th overall pick Benson poaching 157 carries.   

The Bears were determined to justify their egregious 2005 1^st rounder work for them, so they traded Jones to the Jets for a 2^nd round pick in 2007.  He disappeared statistically in his first year with the Jets only putting the ball in the end-zone twice total but racking up 1336 total yards.   It was not entirely his fault as he had an inexperienced offensive line, a crap offensive scheme, and no good blocking fullback.  This collective ineptitude was the key driver for TJ plummeting on draft boards in 2008.

New York went out and added two pro bowl offensive linemen in Alan Faneca and Damien Woody.  They also added the fullback who had blocked Priest Holmes, Larry Johnson, and Adrian Peterson (as a rookie) into fantasy deity status, Tony Richardson.   And then of course Brett Favre, who, despite that he has acted like a child for the last four years of his career, does force defenses to respect the passing game more than Pennington.   The result was a top five fantasy RB performance to the tune of 1,519 yards and 15 total TDs.  If you did enough homework on the situation, you were able to find enormous returns on Jones.

Three things worry us about TJ when we look at the season ahead: 

1) QB:  He has Kellen Clemens and Matt "Dirty" Sanchez to choose from and he should expect many eight man fronts.       

2) Contract:  Jets have openly indicated that they are not interested in extending his contract so he will have to play out his current deal which goes through 2010.  This will result in either a hold-out or self-preservation.  Normally we get all giddy when we see a guy nearing a contract year, but with nothing left to prove at 31 years of age , and no $30-$40 million contracts on his horizon,  Jones could settle to do just enough to get by.  

3) Depth:  The RB depth on Jets roster is all of the sudden robust.  They drafted Iowa's Shonn Greene and then still have that little stud Leon Washington ready to get his. 

We may be stretching with the contract concern but holdouts typically turn out poorly.   It's not all bad news for TJ, though.  Tony Richardson is coming back for his 15^th season, and at 37, is still a punishing blocker.   The offensive line returns intact and is top five in the league in run blocking.  Both were key ingredients to TJ's success from 2008.  Jones is 31 and while that would normally concern us, since being squandered for the first four years of his career, 1,949 career carries does not scare us yet.  We are going to be careful with TJ up until right before our draft.