Sports copy editor Delton Lowery, with Kurt Warner as his starter and Matt Schaub as his fantasy backup, put his money where his mouth was and picked up Matt Leinart.

The advice read:

"With the bye weeks dwindling and therefore the need to have a starter on another team declining, now might be the time for similar moves in your fantasy league. Here are some of the other viable handcuff combos to consider:"

Now we admit Tony Romo/Brad Johnson was not on the list we provided, but that's probably because Lowery doesn't have Romo on his team and was thinking more along the lines of Peyton Manning/Jim Sorgi, Derek Anderson/Brady Quinn and Philip Rivers/Billy Volek.

All three of those pairings plus Warner/Leinart come from offenses with lots and lots of receiving options to include good tight ends and RBs out of the backfield. The Browns are struggling, but we're waiting for them to pick it up. It might not happen against a Giants defense that's producing above our predicted expectations. But who knows? We'll see tonight.

This morning Lowery (that's me, so I guess I'll stop using the third person) woke up and saw Romo was out at least 4 weeks with a broken finger in his throwing hand.

I then thought:

"Ha! I told everyone to get their QB's backup for exactly this reason. I'm a genius. Seriously, who can't throw to T.O. and Jason Witten and that Miles Austin guy or whatever new receiver du jour the Cowboys have? And hey, didn't Marion Barber III have a bunch of receiving yards yesterday, too? But wait. Who's the backup QB in Dallas?"

Well I looked it up and it's ... Brad Johnson.

(HERE'S A CHEEKY BRAD JOHNSON TRIBUTE, PREDICTING A GREAT SEASON FOR JOHNSON WITH BIG D ... IN 2007, BUT IT'LL DO FOR 2008, TOO!)

Of course, New England's Tom Brady then went down with an injury in Week 1, sending thousands of fantasy owners scrambling to the waiver wire in hopes of landing Patriots backup Matt Cassel.

The Patriots pair wasn't the only QB-handcuff combination that made sense before the season -- or that makes even more sense now.

Fresno Bee sports copy editor Delton Lowery had a couple of QBs he was eyeing in the later rounds of The Bee draft to be his team's starter, finally pulling the trigger on Arizona's Kurt Warner in the seventh round.

(GOTTA LOVE THIS VIDEO ON KURT WARNER'S STORY, GOING BACK TO THE GREATEST SHOW ON TURF.)

That has worked out well for Lowery, who has been lucky with respect to Warner avoiding the injury bug. But who knows if the 37-year-old Warner will stay healthy and since the Cardinals' skill players have the potential to make just about any quarterback look good, Lowery decided to employ the handcuff strategy for his team.

Yes, Lowery picked up Matt Leinart, if for no other reason than the Cardinals are playing the Cowboys this week and the Dallas defense has been known to lay the lumber on QBs. If Warner goes down in this or any other week, Leinart should become instantly viable as a fantasy starter.

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Now Sports Buzz is getting in on the action, starting with tickets to the Save Mart Shootout. Our first winner: Adam Hughes, who scored a pair of two-day passes.

There's nothing to do to enter. When we've got tickets, we'll draw a name at random from the pool of recent commenters on Sports Buzz. Winners will be notified by e-mail.

Here are three hot pickups to snag, with percentages of leagues in which they were owned/started last week on CBS Sportsline in parentheses:

QB Kyle Orton, Bears (40% owned/18% started): Past three weeks have gone for 22, 17 and 26 points.

(WATCH THIS CLIP, SHOWING A POISED ORTON LEADING THE BEARS ON A 99-YARD DRIVE AGAINST THE LIONS LAST WEEK.)

To read on and find out the other two hot pickups, click on the link below.

This unusual situation is rare, but not unique, in Bulldogs history.

The 1967 Bulldogs of second-year coach Darryl Rogers opened the season with three straight home losses: 24-16 to Santa Clara, 30-14 to Idaho and 21-20 to Montana State. They hit the road and won their next two: 31-25 over Cal State-Northridge and 41-14 over Cal Poly.

Fresno State then beat visiting Cal State-Los Angeles 14-3 to snap the trend. The Bulldogs were 3-8 that season.

The 1945 Bulldogs of Alvin "Pix" Pierson also were undefeated on the road and winless at home in their first five games. But this one has an asterisk.

Fresno State won three away games, but the two at home were ties. There was no tiebreaker at the time. The Bulldogs lost on the road in their sixth game, and finished 4-6-2.

When will the 2008 Bulldogs break out of this win-on-the-road, lose-at-home rut? They host Idaho (0-2 Western Athletic Conference, 1-5 overall) on Saturday.

* Some view it as a mistake-marred (six Fresno State turnovers, a 90-yard Hawaii touchdown kickoff return, a blocked Bulldog field-goal attempt in closing seconds of regulation, two failed field-goal attempts in overtime) fiasco. I view it as an epic, a hard-hitting battle where the mistakes were due mainly to the excellence of the other team.

There can be disappointment in such a state of affairs. But no shame.

* The Bulldogs' 2-point conversion attempt in the second quarter was telling.
Lonyae Miller had rushed seven yards for the touchdown, cutting Hawaii's lead to 19-9. Bulldogs coach Pat Hill congratulated the offense, then hurried to a table behind the bench for a quick drink of water.

Suddenly, Hill realized something was amiss. Hawaii had too many players on the field. Penalty. Now, the Bulldogs were only about a yard from a two-point conversion.

(IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT McCLAIN CAN DO, CHECK OUT THIS CLIP OF HIM RUNNING THROUGH A STEELERS DEFENDER.)

And who didn't expect the resurrections of Deuce McAllister and Muhsin Muhammad, former fantasy studs toiling for the Saints and Panthers to happen in the same week?

Of course, we at The Fantasy Buzz kid because we care. Truth is, nobody could have predicted all of these sudden surges.

Our fantasy players here, too, are scratching our heads on how we were so wrong on the likes of McClain ("He's behind Willis McGahee and Ray Rice!"), the Texans' Steve Slaton ("Too small for full-time duty"), Bronco Michael Pittman ("Fourth on the Denver depth chart for Pete's sake"), Jerious Norwood ("The Falcons never give him a chance") and the Bucs' Warrick Dunn ("Is he still playing?").

All of all of them are producing above or right around the level of upper-round picks such as Joseph Addai, Brandon Jacobs, Fred Taylor and Darren McFadden.

No matter how much we crunch the stats, study preseason games or pore over the seemingly infinitesimal supply of tips, team talk and other tidbits available in the Internet age, there always will be surprises throughout an NFL season. How we react often is what determines if our teams are playoff bound -- rather than our inability to channel Nostradamus at our drafts.

Which brings us to this point: If you're not making moves, you're probably not winning. It's all too easy to fall in love with your entire roster, refusing to concede someone like Rice just might not be among this season's breakout rookies.

Edison has the ball and is driving with 2:26 to go.

What a reversal for No. 2 Buchanan -- once down down 22-6 in the final minute of the first half -- now leading No. 1 Edison 23-22 early in fourth quarter.

The Bears have scored on Matthew Johnson's 41-yard field goal and a 5-yard interception return by linebacker Brent Etiz to take the lead.

Maybe after lineman Kyle Papendorf nailed Edison quarterback Max Schuh, causing a fumble that was recovered by Bears linebacker James Willis and returned 15 yards for a touchdown with 34.5 seconds remaining in the half.

Tigers coach Tim McDonald has to be kicking himself, knowing he should have had Schuh kneel it out that deep in their territory with less than a minute to go in the half.

There's about 6,000 in attendance.

Jefferson and Harris, maybe the fastest receiving combination in the state, simply outran the Bears' secondary, and Schuh placed the ball perfectly in stride on both occasions.

Watching the Tigers' offense is like watching a college offense on Saturday. And to think Buchanan had the nerve to defer after winning the coin toss to begin the game.