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. Through Week 3, we now have enough information to understand which teams are shaping up as funnel defenses.
Ranking and evaluating all of Week 4’s top plays at quarterback, running back, receiver, tight end, kicker and defense.
Pass Funnel Matchups
Cleveland Browns vs. Detroit Lions
The Lions are going to wreck the Browns. The negative game script for Joe Flacco and the Browns will come swiftly in this one, as it often does against teams that try to win, unlike the hyper-conservative, scared-to-compete Packers in Week 3.
The Lions are 9.5-point home favorites here. They will do everything to snuff out a Cleveland ground game that has looked legit since Quinshon Judkins finally joined the team and emerged as their clear lead back. The Browns are top-five in yards after contact per rush over the past two weeks. When the script is neutral, they’re going to do everything they can to establish it.
With few avenues to neutral script, look for Flacco to pile up the drop backs against the pass-funnel Lions. Detroit is facing a 64 percent neutral game script, the seventh highest in the NFL. Last week the Lions saw the usually-balanced Ravens go eight percent over their expected pass rate against them. Detroit isn’t snuffing out the run by any means — they’re allowing a top-ten rate of rush yards before contact — but teams are choosing to attack them via the pass.
Runaway negative script for Cleveland would be a boon for upwards of four guys, to varying extents: Jerry Jeudy, Cedric Tillman, David Njoku, and Harold Fannin. It’s Fannin who has a comfortable lead in targets per route (24 percen), though he’s running a route on just 55 percent of the Browns’ drop backs. Njoku, meanwhile, is at 76 percent. Both Cleveland tight ends are in play here if you, like me, expect the Browns to abandon the run.
Jeudy remains somewhat interesting because — as I wrote in this week’s Regression Files — he’s gobbling up air yards and running all the routes. Maybe fifty drop backs for Flacco will leave Jeudy no choice but to post fantasy-relevant numbers in Week 4.
San Francisco 49ers vs. Jacksonville Jaguars
The Jags are shaping up as a (very) reliable pass funnel defense this season. They’ve faced the league’s seventh highest pass rate over expected and the third highest neutral pass rate (68 percent). It’s nice to have that kind of clarity so early on.
Jacksonville, for all the team’s various shortcomings, has a solid run defense. They’re allowing the NFL’s lowest rate of missed tackles forced per carry and the lowest rate of rush yards after contact. You can say — and you’d be right — that opposing runners are having an exceedingly tough time against the Jaguars.
That’s forced Jaguars opponents to go to the air in search of yardage. I expect the 49ers, with a middling 57 percent neutral pass rate this season, to go pass-heavy in Week 4 against Jacksonville, opening up more routes and targets for Ricky Pearsall, Jauan Jennings (if he plays), and Jake Tonges, who continues operating as the team’s TE1 with George Kittle sidelined. And of course Christian McCaffrey will continue getting peppered with targets until morale improves (CMC has 31 targets, seven more than the next closest running back, De’Von Achane).
Tonges makes for an interesting streaming option in a decent matchup. Be warned: He’s run a route on 65 percent of the Niners’ drop backs over the past two weeks, a less-than-stellar situation.
Matthew Berry reveals the 10 Facts You Need to Know Before Week 4, including why Caleb Williams vs. Geno Smith is poised to be a shootout.
Run Funnel Matchups
Kansas City Chiefs vs. Baltimore Ravens
In the tradition of a tree falling with no one around, when Andy Reid and the Chiefs have a run funnel matchup, does it matter? Philosophers have toiled for generations over this question.
Maybe not. But maybe! The Ravens, in any case, are one of the NFL’s most extreme run funnel defenses through Week 3. Probably that has to do with Baltimore’s defense allowing a league-high three rush yards after contact per attempt. The Ravens have proven susceptible to big runs: 34 percent of the rushing yards against them have come on explosive rushes, the sixth highest rate in the NFL. Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising then that Ravens opponents through three games have posted a 49 percent neutral pass rate, the lowest in the league.
That should, in theory, make Week 4 a nice little spot for Isiah Pacheco. Except Pacheco isn’t really the RB1 in this offense anymore. He has 25 rushing attempts to 23 rushes for Kareem Hunt. That Pacheco leads the KC backfield in pass routes isn’t as good as it seems. He’s run a route on a meager 37 percent of the team’s drop backs and he’s being targeted on just 13 percent of his routes.
The Chiefs leading the league in pass rate over expected might make one think Reid and Patrick Mahomes have given up on the run. That’s not quite true though. Kansas City has a 56 percent pass rate in neutral situations this year; only 12 teams are lower. They’ve shown some interest in establishing it, and against a vulnerable Baltimore front seven, we could see them try again. If you’re ever going to play Pacheco with some confidence, it’s this week against a run funnel defense.
New York Jets vs. Miami Dolphins
The Jets might be able to do what they log to do in Week 4 against the Dolphins. They came into the 2025 season telling anyone who would listen that they were going to run the ball as much or more than anyone. You have no idea how far we’re willing to push this old-school bit, head coach Aaron Glenn said again and again.
Through Week 3, the Jets are 6.5 percent below their expected pass rate, the lowest in the NFL. They’re doing the thing. In Week 4 they face off against a Miami defense that has seen opponents run the ball at a 50 percent clip in neutral game script. Two of the Dolphins’ three opponents this season have been under their expected pass rate.
It should spell good things for Breece Hall, who has seen 38 of the team’s 52 running back rushing attempts. Hall has been fine through three games. He’s in the top-20 in rush yards after contact per rush, averaging 4.2 yards per carry. Compared to backfield-mate Braelon Allen, Hall is Barry Sanders circa 1994. Hall’s route rate (38 percent) could be better, but if you need some cope, here’s some cope: Hall has been targeted on 27 percent of those routes. His Week 4 matchup could hardly be better.
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