Fantasy Football Week 11: Chargers vs. Jaguars, Bears vs. Vikings, and other matchups to exploit
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 11.
Patrick Daugherty▶ Pass Funnel Matchups
Chargers vs. Jaguars
Jacksonville over the past month has catapulted to the top of the pass funnel heap. The Jaguars through Week 10 are facing a league-high 66 percent neutral pass rate (no other defense is above 62 percent) and the highest pass rate over expected (7 percent). Seven of Jacksonville’s past eight opponents have been over their expected pass rate.
The path to beating the Jags is pretty clear: Attack the team’s middling coverage unit and pressure Trevor Lawrence into oblivion. This is analytics.
Defenses don’t have to ask twice for the Chargers to lean toward the pass. Only the Cardinals and Chiefs have been more pass heavy than the Bolts this season. They’re passing on 61 percent of their plays in neutral situations, though that rate has dipped to 57 percent over the past month.
The pass-funnel nature of the Jacksonville defense has created some fantastic environments for pass catchers facing the Jags. No team has seen more air yards against them in 2025 (for context, consider Jaguars opponents average 317 air yards per game while KC opponents average 162 air yards per game).
This could mean fantasy-viable games for two (or three) Chargers pass catchers. Obviously that includes Ladd McConkey — the team’s de facto WR1 — and Quentin Johnston. It could be good news for Keenan Allen too. Allen has run just around half the routes in the LA offense over the past few weeks but could see a boost if Oronde Gadsden II (quad) misses Week 11.
If Gadsden is a go for Week 11, he’s something close to a must-play in 12-team formats against a Jags defense allowing 9.5 tight end targets per game, the second highest mark in the league.
Texans vs. Titans
A few days after I wrote about Dalton Schultz and Nico Collins as negative regression candidates following their Week 10 explosions, I’m telling you Collins and Schultz are taking on an increasingly exploitable pass-funnel Tennessee defense in Week 11. That’s what you call Consistent Analysis.
Schultz, Collins, and the rest of the Houston pass catchers are in a good spot against a Titans defense that has seen the second highest pass rate over expected against it in 2025. It makes good sense that Titans opponents are choosing to attack via the pass: Tennessee has allowed the league’s eighth highest completion rate over expected and the sixth highest QB rating through Week 10. Since Week 6, only three defenses have given up a higher drop back success rate than the Titans.
The Texans — maybe because they lack a viable starting running back — have been surprisingly pass-first this season. They’ve passed the ball at a 58 percent clip in neutral situations (when the game is within seven points), a top-ten rate. That neutral rate has ticked up to 60 percent over their past two games.
Against these Titans in Week 4, C.J. Stroud, who will miss a second straight game after his Week 9 concussion, threw for 233 yards and two touchdowns on 28 attempts. He was 8.5 percent above his expected completion rate — the sixth best mark of Week 4 — and his 8.3 adjusted yards per attempt was the second best AY/A of 2025. If Davis Mills draws another start, he would make for a reasonable superflex option.
A pass-heavy approach for Houston could make the ultra-efficient Jaylen Noel or Jayden Higgins interesting for deep league purposes. Last week against the Jaguars, Higgins ran only half the team’s routes but was targeted on a hefty 29 percent of those routes.
Matthew Berry▶ Run Funnel Matchups
Bucs vs. Bills
This game pits an extreme pass funnel defense (Tampa) against an extreme run funnel defense (Buffalo) in a game that will hinge on which team can first exert control over game script.
The Bills defense, getting wrecked via the ground almost every week now, has faced the NFL’s lowest pass rate over expected. Six of their nine opponents have been under their expected pass rate. Buffalo had been allowing one of the highest rates of rush yards before contact over the season’s first six weeks. They’ve (sorta) fixed that issue but now face a new problem: Since Week 6, the Bills are allowing a league-high 3.2 yards after contact per rush. Buffalo’s tackling has been a disaster over that sorry stretch; only the Giants are averaging more missed tackles per rushing attempt.
Though the Bucs have a top-8 neutral pass rate this season, I think it’s reasonable to expect Tampa to attack Buffalo on the ground here, especially if they have Bucky Irving back from various physical ailments. The Bucs have been under their expected pass rate a few times in 2025, mostly against defenses that can’t stop the ground game. Tampa does that thing where you adjust your game plan to best exploit your opponent’s weakness.
A run-first approach against Buffalo could limit target volume for Tampa pass catchers not named Emeka Egbuka, who’s dominating the Bucs passing attack much like JSN dominates in Seattle. The Bills have faced the fifth fewest air yards per game through Week 10. Be careful with how you handle Tez Johnson, Cade Otton, and the other secondary and tertiary Tampa pass catchers.
Bears vs. Vikings
I said on Thursday’s Rotoworld Football Show — during which we previewed every Week 11 game — that this game features a quietly fun fantasy environment because the Bears and Vikings are the two worst defenses against the deep ball. I predict splash plays in this one.
Between the splash plays, look for plenty of rushing attempts for the Bears, who have quietly become a run-first team in Ben Johnson’s first year at the helm. Their 50 percent neutral pass rate since Week 5 is the NFL’s fifth lowest. Weirdly, the Bears have a slightly higher pass rate while leading.
Chicago takes on a Vikings defense seeing the fifth lowest pass rate over expected against them this season. Five of Minnesota’s past seven opponents have been (well) below their expected pass rate in neutral game script. That doesn’t mean the Vikings are particularly bad at defending the run: They allow the tenth lowest rate of rush yards before contact and the 12th fewest rush yards after contact.
I’d expect D’Andre Swift to see plenty of touches if game script is normal here. This isn’t the same Bears offense that was 7 percent above its expected pass rate in Week 1 against these Vikings. Since that giga-turbo-ultra pass heavy season opener, Ben Johnson’s team ranks 28th in pass rate over expected.
A real commitment to attacking via the ground game would mean a decent workload for Kyle Monangai, who last week against the Giants had seven rushes, including a green zone carry for a touchdown. He might suffice as a deep-league flex in Week 11.
I very much like Odunze against this burnable Minnesota coverage unit. I’m not sure I could stomach starting any other Chicago pass catcher in 12-team leagues unless I was desperate for a flex or tight end and messed around with Luther Burden or Colston Loveland. A lack of pass volume would make any non-Odunze Bears pass catcher an exceedingly thin play though.
