In our everlasting mission to predict the future, a top-down look at how an offense might attack their opponent’s defense is, in my humble estimation, a good place to start.
We find defenses every season that profile as a so-called run funnel, meaning opponents lean unusually hard on the rushing attack in neutral and positive game scripts. The same goes for pass funnels: Defenses that are regularly attacked through the air in neutral situations (generally meaning when the game is within seven points either way).
Identifying those matchups is the point of this column. We’ll get better, more reliable data on how teams are attacking defenses as the season rolls on. For now, we have 2023 numbers and some educated guesses about how teams might operate according to their offseason moves.
This funnel defense analysis should not be the end-all-be-all for how you determine your weekly fantasy plays. It is but another data point in your brain-rattling decision making on who to play and who to bench.
Run Funnel Matchups
Texans at Colts
The Colts, as loyal Funnel Report readers will remember, ended the 2023 season as one of the NFL’s most pronounced run funnels. Only the Jets, in fact, were a more extreme run funnel. This was mostly because Indy’s run defense was quite bad, allowing the tenth highest yards before contact per rush and posting the seventh lowest rushing stuff rate.
Colts opponents last season ran the ball at a 46 percent clip in neutral game script, the second highest mark in the NFL. Texans OC Bobby Slowik established it hard in a Week 18 showdown with the Colts last year. Houston had a 45 percent neutral pass rate. It didn’t amount to much (60 rush yards) but the intent was clear.
This should work quite well for Joe Mixon in Week 1. Houston is favored and sports a hefty 25.5-point total. Mixon’s Texans career should get off to a not-terrible start if the team is in position to attack a weak Indy rush defense.
Cardinals at Bills
Buffalo’s offense under OC Joe Brady, as I wrote a couple months ago, was decidedly run first in nature. In Week 1, the Bills go up against last year’s most extreme run funnel defense. Arizona opponents had a 52 percent neutral pass rate in 2023, the league’s lowest. Relatedly, Pro Football Focus graded the Cards’ rush defense as the NFL’s worst.
James Cook is the obvious beneficiary here. Only 10 running backs had more carries than Cook over the final seven weeks of the 2023 season with Brady calling plays for the Bills. Buffalo is a 6.5 point favorite with the week’s second highest implied total (27). Cook could see a surprising amount of opening day work.
Cowboys at Browns
I’m on record as saying this is a total meltdown spot for Dallas. Coming off a tumultuous offseason with a lame duck coach and a quarterback who can’t wait to sign elsewhere, I see this being a nightmare season opener for Mike McCarthy’s guys.
The Cowboys profiled as one of the league’s most extreme run funnels by the end of 2023. As soon as the Dallas offense stopped creating giant leads (with the help of a weird number of pick sixes), opponents bludgeoned them on the ground. From Week 10-18, Cowboys opponents had a lowly 57 percent neutral pass rate, and over the season’s final month, no team was a more pronounced run funnel than Dallas. They were bottom three in both rushing success rate allowed and rush EPA allowed. Everyone established it (successfully) against Jerry’s team.
Jerome Ford should be fed in this one. D’Onta Foreman, who was released by the Browns before being brought back a few days later, isn’t much of a threat to Ford’s workload. Though Pierre Strong may factor in as pass catcher out of the Cleveland backfield, it’s Ford who stands to benefit from a bunch of positive game script in Week 1.
Panthers at Saints
Panthers head coach Dave Canales told anyone who would listen this offseason that he wants to establish the run like it’s 1988. That might not have been his exact words, but you get it. Canales wants Bryce Young to game manage a run-first offense. Probably it’s Young’s only path to long-term NFL viability.
Enter Chuba Hubbard, an ever-reliable back who has been — for better or worse — the centerpiece of Carolina’s offense over the past two seasons. Hubbard should be in for a good-sized workload against a run-funnel Saints defense that last year saw opponents pass the ball at a 54 percent clip in neutral game script — the third lowest rate. No team saw a lower pass rate than the Saints when trailing in 2023.
Jonathan Brooks is out and Miles Sanders doesn’t pose much of a risk to Hubbard’s RB1 role. While it’s never pretty with Hubbard, 20-plus Week 1 touches probably doesn’t sound too bad to folks who drafted the Panthers running back in the 12th round.
Pass Funnel Matchups
Vikings at Giants
Only the Jaguars and Eagles defenses saw a higher neutral pass rate in 2023 than the Giants. New York opponents passed against the G-people even when they had the lead.
That should fit well for a pass-first, pass-always Vikings offense that last season was over its expected drop back rate in 15 of 17 games. Kevin O’Connell let it rip even when Nick Mullens was under center. There’s not much reason to think O’Connell won’t do the same with new starter Sam Darnold.
This isn’t so much about Darnold. I said on Thursday’s Rotoworld Football Show that this opening day matchup should be a tough one for Darnold; we’re looking very powerfully into a classic Darnold meltdown game. The pass volume will almost certainly be there though. Beyond Justin Jefferson — who, barring weird game script, could easily see a dozen targets here — that volume should trickle down to Jordan Addison and Jalen Nailor. For you sickos, it could mean good things for TE Johnny Mundt.
One last note on the Minnesota offense: No team in 2023 had a higher pass rate over expected in the red zone.
Titans at Bears
We have to forget everything we think we know about the Tennessee Titans. They are no longer the team pining for the days when three yards and a cloud of dust might have been a path to the Super Bowl. This is no longer Mike Vrabel’s backward team.
This is Brian Callahan’s team, and more specifically, his offense. Callahan comes from a Bengals offense that has been massively pass heavy even during Joe Burrow’s many, many absences. These aren’t your grandfather’s Titans. These are your annoying zoomer cousin’s Titans.
I see a few paths in which Will Levis and the Tennessee offense drops back early and often in Week 1 against the Bears. Chicago opponents in 2023 had a 60 percent neutral pass rate, top 10 in the league. Teams facing the Bears dropped back to pass at a league-high rate.
Look for the Titans — 3.5-point underdogs on the road — to let it rip here. Inflated drop back numbers for Levis could lead to a couple positive fantasy outcomes: Levis, an underrated rusher, could have more chances to collect yards on the ground, and DeAndre Hopkins and Calvin Ridley could see a bunch of looks as the top-two Tennessee targets. Titans OC Nick Holz said this week that if Hopkins plays through his knee injury, he will have a sizable role.
Lots of passing from Levis could also boost Tyler Boyd and whichever running back gets the pass-catching work out of the backfield. My guess would be Tyjae Spears.
Jets at 49ers
Obviously you’re playing Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall in a miserable Week 1 matchup in San Francisco. Know that the Jets’ drop back volume could be (very) high against one of last year’s most pronounced pass funnel defenses.
Niners opponents in 2023 were 5.4 percent over their expected pass rate, the highest in the NFL. They had a 61 percent neutral pass rate; only the Eagles and Jaguars saw higher rates. This might, per the analytics, have something to do with the 49ers rush defense being somewhat terrifying. In 2023, they allowed the NFL’s second lowest yards before contact per rush and gave up a low 4.8 percent explosive run rate.
The Jets entering Week 1 as 4.5-point road dogs, I fully expect a pass-heavy game script for Aaron Rodgers in his first full game in two years. That should inflate targets for Wilson and Hall, along with PPR-cheat-code-in-waiting Tyler Conklin and perhaps slot man Xavier Gipson.