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Fantasy Football Week 12 Start or Sit: Jonas Gray

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By @davidrumseynfl

New England Patriots Running Back Jonas Gray

Thomas J. Russo-USA TODAY Sports

When a running back scores 44 fantasy football points in one game, he should be a lock to start the next week on your team, right? In most cases, yes. Scoring such an insane amount of fantasy points doesn’t happen very often, so for a player to do so would mean he must have excellent talent and a lot of confidence from the coaching staff to even get the opportunity to score that many points. New England Patriots running back Jonas Gray carried the football 37 times Sunday night against the Indianapolis Colts while racking up 201 yards and four touchdowns. That kind of production from a player on any other team would mean they had just found their new stud running back. The Patriots do things a little differently, though.

Think back to January of this year. The Patriots played the same Colts team in the divisional round of playoffs and beat them almost the exact same way. LeGarrette Blount rushed 24 times for 166 yards and four touchdowns, while Steven Ridley added another 52 yards and two touchdowns on 12 carries. Bill Belichick obviously knows he can run the ball all he wants on the Indianapolis defense, so he does, every time. Tom Brady had a decent game himself, but only threw the ball 30 times. He had been averaging 39 attempts a game since Week 5, never throwing less than 35. So it seems safe to say that Gray’s absurd workload Sunday night may not be duplicated again.

We should keep in mind that Gray was just brought up from the practice squad in October, so there’s no way to really judge him or know exactly how the Patriots will use him moving forward. He obviously proved he can be a beast if given the chance against the right opponent, but that was just one game. He wasn’t involved at all in the passing game, either. That role still belongs to Shane Vereen, who caught four receptions for 59 yards. Maybe the Patriots have stumbled onto a star here, but we can’t just assume that yet. Until we see the Patriots give Gray a consistent workload every game, it is simply too risky to have him in your lineup.

The Patriots play the Detroit Lions this weekend, a team that boasts the best defense in the league. The Lions give up less than 70 yards a game on the ground, so Belichick could definitely game plan differently  than they did last week. Or he could surprise us all and give Gray the football 40 times on Sunday, there’s no way to know. If you don’t have a strong RB2 or a FLEX I would say give Gray a shot, but don’t bench a RB1 for him.

David Rumsey is a Tampa Bay Buccaneers writer for RantSports. Follow him on Twitter, and Add him on Facebook or Google.

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