The Best Players to Stash in Fantasy Football From the AFC East

Jonas Gray, RB, New England Patriots

The Player

Jonas Gray has taken the road less traveled to get his NFL shot. A part-time player in college at Notre Dame, Gray tore his ACL his senior year and went undrafted while he rehabbed into the 2013 season.

He spent time on several practice squads before catching on in New England last year, breaking out for 200 yards and 4 touchdowns in a Week 11 bout with Indianapolis. In that game, he displayed great burst and the ability to break tackles and earn yards after contact.

However, Gray found himself in Bill Belichick's doghouse just days after his breakout performance, oversleeping and missing a team meeting. And hell hath no furry like the Hoodie's scorn. He continued to play second (and sometimes third and fourth) fiddle to LeGarrette Blount for the rest of the season despite outperforming him in all of our Net Expected Points (NEP) metrics.

NEP is our our in-house metric that compares a player or team’s production to league expectation level. You can read more about it in our glossary.

Regardless, Gray reported to camp motivated and in shape, having dropped 10 pounds and reportedly looking quicker. And in case this is the first article of the series you are reading, full disclosure: I am #teamweightloss.

In limited work last season, Gray actually paced the NFL in Rushing NEP per rush for backs with more than 80 carries at 0.19. On 125 carries last year, Blount finished with -0.02, appreciable worse on a somewhat comparable workload.

Gray has the size at 5'10, 225 pounds to handle a large NFL workload and clearly demonstrated the ability to be productive in this New England system. But can he get on the field in 2015?

The Opportunity

Speaking of the Hoodie's scorn, Blount reported to camp this season out of shape, failing the team's condition test before spraining his MCL a week later. Oh, and he's suspended for Week 1. Would it surprise anyone if he was the next occupant of the Patriots' doghouse?

While there's an assumption that the Patriots shy away from having one lead back, this is a team that has had 1,000-yard rushers as recently as 2010 (BenJarvus Green-Ellis) and 2012 (Stevan Ridley), with injuries and subpar talent getting in the way of more consistency over the years.

But when the Patriots have had a talented back, they haven't hesitated to give them substantial workloads. Corey Dillon had 1,600 yards once for this team.

While Gray won't be on the field on passing downs, which will limit his fantasy value, if Blount continues to blow his opportunities like he has (and like he did in Pittsburgh), Gray appears talented enough to make the most of it. It's a situation to monitor as the preseason unfolds.