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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 7, we now have enough information to understand which teams are shaping up as funnel defenses.

Jordan Love, Chimere Dike, Troy Franklin headline Week 8’s Regression Files

This week’s Regression Files includes a close look at total team air yards, along with players running particularly hot or cold headed into Week 8.

• Denny Carter,

Run Funnel Matchups

Falcons vs. Dolphins

The Dolphins’ vibes death, their poor defense, and the Falcons' predilection to run the ball no matter what creates the conditions of an Atlanta game plan so run heavy it could open up a wormhole to 1977.

Why 1977? I don’t know. They ran the ball a lot back then. Whatever.

The point is that the Falcons, with a 53 percent neutral pass rate, are taking on a Miami defense facing the NFL’s lowest neutral pass rate this season. Dolphins opponents have been 3.5 percent below their expected pass rate in 2025, the lowest rate in the league. Teams seem not to mind establishing it against a front seven giving up the highest rate of rush yards after contact. Miami’s tackling has been among the worst in the NFL over the past month; only the Giants are averaging more missed tackles per rush over that stretch.

Obviously this means Bijan Robinson enters the week with as much upside as any running back in the history of our little game. It also means Tyler Allgeier is firmly in play as a flex option, especially in 14-team leagues with six NFL teams on bye. The Falcons pass at a 44 percent clip when leading this season. They’re seven-point favorites here. Allgeier, meanwhile, is averaging 14 carries per game in Falcons wins this season (he’s seen five rushes per game in losses).

Allgeier could easily see a dozen touches against a bad Miami defense. His touchdown equity is real too, as Allgeier has accounted for 58 percent of the Falcons’ inside-the-ten rushing attempts through Week 7. Bijan drafters have written letters to Congress about this arrangement.

Panthers vs. Bills

This analysis requires one to believe the Panthers can hang tough with Josh Allen and the Bills. Maybe that’s not so hard to fathom considering these same Bills lost to the middling Falcons two weeks ago. Or maybe Andy Dalton will ensure we don’t get much neutral game script here.

If this is an evenly matched game, look for Carolina to go ultra-giga-mega run heavy, to use a technical term. The Panthers’ 52 percent neutral pass rate is the fourth lowest in the league this season. No team has a lower pass rate over expected than Carolina.

This week they face a Buffalo defense that has been beat up by opposing rushing attacks. The metrics tell the story: The Bills allow the second highest rate of rush yards before contact and the fourth highest rate of missed tackles on rushing attempts. The Bills, in short, are being bullied in the trenches. They enter Week 8 with a bevy of defensive injuries too.

You are less than shocked to learn Buffalo has faced the fifth lowest neutral pass rate in 2025. Teams facing the Bills have averaged 33 rushes per game. That’s not a small number.

Last week Rico Dowdle and Chuba Hubbard combined for 31 rushes against the Jets, 17 for Dowdle and 14 for Hubbard, who was wildly ineffective in his return to game action. Carolina’s offense was below its expected pass rate for the fourth straight game. They should — with enough decent script — be in line to split 30-35 touches in Week 8. It makes both of them playable. Dowdle’s big play ability means he still has some upside juice with Hubbard in the mix.

RotoPat’s Week 8 Fantasy Football Rankings

Ranking and evaluating all of Week 8’s top plays at quarterback, running back, receiver, tight end, kicker and defense.

• Patrick Daugherty,

Pass Funnel Matchups

Steelers vs. Packers

No one is even trying to run the rock against Green Bay these days. Packers opponents over the season have passed the ball at a 64 percent clip in neutral situations. Teams facing the Pack have the sixth highest neutral pass rate over expected.

I don’t think Aaron Rodgers will be devastated to learn he’ll likely have to drop back early and often against his former team in Week 8. If Rodgers can manage to throw the ball with the overgrown chip weighing down his shoulder, he should at least have a chance to put up numbers against the Packers, whose opponents have all but abandoned the run in negative game script (the Packers are three-point favorites as of this writing).

The Steelers haven’t been nearly as run heavy as analytics nerds had feared. Their 56 percent neutral pass rate ranks near the middle of the league. Pittsburgh’s pass rate over expected is usually around zero. For Arthur Smith, this is known as progress.

Though there aren’t many air yards to go around in this offense, there should be lots of targets to disperse between DK Metcalf and the rest of the Steelers pass catchers. Rodgers has targeted his tight ends at a league-high rate (37 percent). The problem, as you know, is that those looks are being spread among three guys: Jonnu Smith, Pat Freiermuth, and Darnell Washington. It’s Smith running the most routes out of these three, but it’s Washington being targeted on a gaudy 32 percent of his routes over the past month.

It’ll take a little guesswork, but one of these Pittsburgh tight ends could have a (very) nice day against a Green Bay defense allowing more tight end targets per game (10.5) than anyone in the NFL.

Eagles vs. Giants

The fantasy points could keep flowing in Week 8 for DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown, who — as I detailed in this week’s Regression Files — have benefited in big ways from a spike in total team air yards and a weirdly pass-first Eagles offense (since Saquon Barkley is bad now).

Jalen Hurts and the Eagles will take on a Giants defense that has faced the league’s second highest neutral pass rate in 2025 — a pass rate that has inched upward over the past four weeks. The last time these teams played, way back in Week 6, Philly was almost 4 percent above its expected pass rate and Hurts logged 38 drop backs (and 33 pass attempts). Unless we get haywire game script here, look for Hurts to meet or exceed this kind of pass volume against a Jaxson Dart-led New York offense more than capable of pushing the Eagles.

It’s welcome news for Dallas Goedert too. Maybe you’re old enough to remember when Goedert two weeks ago caught nine of his 11 targets for 110 yards and a touchdown against the G-people. That fat stat line hardly came out of nowhere: The Giants are allowing the fourth most targets per game to the tight end position this season. Tight ends have seen 23 total targets against New York over their past two games.

Giants defensive coordinator Shane Bowen's fourth-quarter decisions came under scrutiny after the team blew a 19-point lead in the fourth quarter of last Sunday's 33-32 loss to the Broncos.

Bowen was criticized for dropping eight players in coverage on a key Broncos completion ahead of their game-winning field goal and for not having defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence on the field as one of the three players trying to pressure quarterback Bo Nix. Both were things that head coach Brian Daboll could have pushed to change, but Bowen said on Thursday that "it's all me" when asked about who ultimately makes those calls and said it is up to him to make sure the Giants are situated for success.

"It's all about how you want to delegate your resources," Bowen said, via a transcript from the team. "The situations, they're always changing. They're always evolving. They're all a little bit different. Them not having any timeouts. I think they were in seven-man protection. They had those guys in there. So, I mean, it's a cat and mouse game, understanding how they're going to attack you. I had an idea of what was coming. It felt like we were in a good call. Obviously, it didn't work out, and it wasn't what we wanted it to be. So that's something we're evaluating. I have continue to work that to make sure I can put our players in the best position to execute in those moments."

Daboll waved off the idea of coaching changes in the wake of the Broncos loss and a strong rebound against the Eagles on Sunday will quiet things down after such a crushing loss. The Giants also let a potential win against Dallas slip away from them, however, and any similar outcomes in the future will revive calls for a new defensive voice.