Each week of the 2025 NFL regular season, I’ll use this space to highlight teams facing various funnel defenses and fantasy options who could benefit.
What’s a Funnel Defense?
A funnel defense, in case you’re wondering, is a defense that faces an unusually high rate of pass attempts or rushes. I’ll take a close look at how opponents are playing these defenses in neutral game script — when the game is within a touchdown either way — and how good or bad these rush and pass defenses have been of late.
Identifying funnel defenses is hardly an exact science, and whacked-out game script can always foil our best-laid plans. It happens. I’ve found it useful in recent seasons to analyze matchups through this lens to see if there are any useful additions to the always-agonizing start-sit process we put ourselves through every week.
With more data, this analysis will improve. It happens every season. We are eyeball deep in data headed into Week 13.
Ranking and evaluating all of Week 14’s top plays at quarterback, running back, receiver, tight end, kicker and defense.
▶ Pass Funnel MatchupsSaints vs. Bucs
Tyler Shough and the down-unfathomably Saints get their crack at the pass-funnel Tampa defense this week and everything will go according to plan, per the analytics.
I’m kidding, of course. With a team as awful as the Saints, best-laid plans go haywire in a hurry. This is my way of telling you, funnel-defense enthusiast, that I cannot be held responsible for how you deploy Saints players in Week 14. Please don’t sue me.
The Bucs have faced a 62 percent neutral pass rate this season; only the Broncos and Jaguars have seen a higher neutral pass rate against them. Bucs opponents since Week 9 have a 65 percent neutral pass rate, with six of the past seven teams to play Tampa going well over their expected pass rate.
The Saints in Week 8 against these Bucs were a whopping 17 percent over their expected pass rate, as Spencer Rattler melted down and Shough got his chance under center for New Orleans. The Saints had 51 pass attempts in that game and eight non-QB rushes. They passed against the pass funnel. Imagine that.
The Saints with Shough under center haven’t been particularly pass heavy. They’ve had a 57 percent neutral pass rate with Shough as starter, a middle-of-the-pack rate since Week 9. That’s primed to spike against a Tampa defense that invites every opponent to establish the pass.
Chris Olave, who has seen 44 percent of the team’s air yards and 23 percent of the targets since Rashid Shaheed was shipped to Seattle, should obviously remain in all lineups this week. Devaughn Vele, fresh off a hyper-efficient eight-target outing against Miami, is a perfectly reasonable PPR option against the pass-funnel Bucs.
Tampa has been generous to opposing slot guys, allowing the NFL’s seventh most slot receptions per game and the fifth-highest completion rate over expected on pass attempts to the slot. Juwan Johnson last week led the Saints with a 55 percent route rate from the slot. In Week 12 against Atlanta, Johnson ran 67 percent of his routes from the slot. With an uptick in drop backs for the Saints, Johnson profiles as a sneaky play if you’re down bad at tight end in Week 14.
▶ Run Funnel MatchupsCommanders vs. Vikings
It looks like Chris Rodriguez is the latest lead back in the Washington backfield. It’s nice to take turns, and that’s what the Commanders are doing with their running backs this season. Sharing is caring, things of that nature.
C-Rod, as the kids are calling him, has 26 of the team’s 48 running back carries over the past two games. Against the Broncos in Week 13, he led Washington’s backfield with 11 rushes while Jeremy McNichols had six and Jacory Croskey-Merritt — relegated to RB3 duties — had four. Rodriguez remained behind McNichols as the primary pass catching back, however, as McNichols logged 25 pass routes to 15 routes for C-Rod against Denver. JCM ran a grand total of three routes.
I’m centering this analysis on Rodriguez because the Commanders this week take on a Vikings defense that has seen opponents run the ball at a 50 percent clip in neutral game script, making Minnesota one of the league’s most pronounced run funnels. Only four teams have seen a lower pass rate over expected against them in 2025.
Please don’t misinterpret this as a weekly green light to play any back and everyone against the Vikings rush defense. C-Rod isn’t guaranteed more than 15 touches in this one, and his workload could be vanishingly small if the Vikings get game script on their side early. Through Week 13, the Vikings are allowing the 11th highest EPA per rush. Teams are avoiding the pass and attacking Minnesota on the ground. I think Washington could be next.
This, of course, wrecks things for Commanders pass catchers. I wrote in Regression Files this week that Terry McLaurin and Zach Ertz had big outings against the Broncos largely because the Commanders led the NFL with a shockingly-high 499 total team air yards in Week 13. That’s more than double their season team air yards average. If they go run-heavy against the Vikings, that 499 air yards number could be more like 200. That would lop off a whole lot of upside for McLaurin and the rest of the Washington pass catchers.
See which players are running unsustainably hot or cold headed into Week 14, and what it might mean for your start-sit decisions.
Bears vs. Packers
The Bears, as we know well by now, don’t mind establishing it. Through Week 13 Ben Johnson’s offense sports a 52 percent neutral pass rate, the fourth lowest mark in the league. That rate has dropped to 48 percent since Week 8. The Bears will keep grinding via the run until morale improves.
This week they face a Green Bay defense that practically invites opponents to go giga-ultra run heavy. Over the past six weeks, the Packers defense has seen opponents pass the ball at a league-low 42 percent rate in neutral situations (when the game is within one score).
Partly to avoid the Packers’ ferocious pass rush and partly because their rush defense is mid-bordering-on-bad, Green Bay opponents are a collective 13 percent below their expected pass rate since Week 9, when teams really started turning hard toward the run against the Packers.
Another run-first game plan for Chicago should fuel rushing volume once again for both D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai. The Bears since Week 9 lead the NFL in rush attempts and rush yards. And here’s the thing: They’re good at running the rock. Only the Chiefs have a higher rushing success rate since Week 9. The Bears backs might not combine for 40 rush attempts like they did in Week 13 against the Eagles in windy conditions. That doesn’t mean they can’t push past 30 combined carries barring weird game script. It should make Monangai imminently playable as a flex in 12-team formats.
Rome Odunze, Colston Loveland, DJ Moore, and the rest of the Chicago pass catchers would have a tough time getting there for fantasy purposes if the Bears attack the Packers on the ground and limit drop backs for Caleb Williams, the unluckiest quarterback in the NFL this season. Just keep this in mind if you’re agonizing over starting or sitting any of the Bears wideouts in Week 14. Green Bay’s defense has faced the fourth fewest pass attempts since Week 9.
Broncos vs. Raiders
The discombobulated black and silver laughingstock snuck up on me as a run funnel in recent weeks. Since Week 9, the Raiders have faced the league’s sixth lowest pass rate over expected, with their past two opponents — the Browns and Chargers — going ultra run heavy. Vegas opponents are now running the ball at a 50 percent rate in neutral situations.
Shifting toward the run would be somewhat new for this year’s Broncos. Denver’s neutral pass rate this season sits at 60 percent, the sixth highest in the NFL. Only four teams have a higher pass rate over expected (PROE) than the Broncos after they went 13 percent PROE in their narrow Week 13 win over Washington.
Know that the Broncos were 6.6 percent over their expected pass rate when they faced the Raiders in Week 3, a hideous 10-7 win for Denver. Bo Nix completed 56 percent of his passes with two picks and an ugly little 2.8 adjusted yards per attempt. Perhaps the lingering memory of that awful performance will influence Sean Payton’s approach to Denver’s second matchup against these Raiders.
Vegas isn’t a terrible rush defense. On the season they allow a bottom-ten rate of rush yards before contact, though they’re missing tackles on rushing attempts at the fifth highest rate in the NFL. So they can be had.
RJ Harvey has functioned as the Broncos’ lead rusher over the team’s past two outings. Harvey has accounted for 24 of the team’s 36 running back carries. His route participation rate (29 percent) over those two games somehow leads the backfield. It’s not as bad as it seems since Harvey has been targeted on nearly 30 percent of his pass routes in those two games. The Broncos want him involved in the passing attack. Harvey could see a boost in rushing volume if the Broncos follow recent Vegas opponents and establish it early and often against the increasingly run funnel Raiders.