Fantasy Football Week 3: Seahawks vs. Saints, Patriots vs. Steelers, 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. The first few weeks are always tough to pin down. I’ll focus mostly on how defenses were attacked in 2024 and try to adjust for offseason moves and other factors that might change things for that defense in a new year.

🏈 Run Funnel Matchups

Patriots vs. Steelers

Pittsburgh’s rush defense — and defense more generally — has been abysmal through two games. I can’t even imagine the ways in which this pierces the soul of Steelers fans who pride themselves on playing the same kind of football for 60 straight years.

Steelers opponents through Week 2 are running the ball at a 48 percent neutral clip, the third-highest rate in the NFL. They are, for now, a run funnel. It makes good sense that teams are establishing it against Mike Tomlin’s defense: Pittsburgh is allowing the sixth-highest rate of rush yards before contact and missing tackles at the NFL’s second-highest rate. Last week Ken Walker made the Steelers look downright silly, running away from T.J. Watt as Watt faced constant double and triple teams.

It should set up well for Rhamondre Stevenson, who -- to the sheer horror of TreVeyon Henderson drafters -- is the Patriots’ lead back. Stevenson has taken on 56 percent of the Pats’ rushing attempts this season while leading all New England backs in pass routes (Stevenson has been targeted on 21 percent of his routes while Henderson is at 28 percent). If things continue unchanged for the Patriots in Week 3, it should be Stevenson who benefits the most.

Steelers opponents have run the ball 55 percent of the time when leading through two weeks. If the Patriots grab a lead here, Stevenson could be in for a solid if unspectacular workload.

Cowboys vs. Bears

This game has all the ingredients of a barn burner. The barn has very little chance of not burning all the way to the ground, per the analytics.

Probably I don’t need to convince you to play Javonte Williams, who has a death grip on the Dallas backfield. Williams has 33 of the team’s 42 running back carries through Week 2, running a route on 62 percent of Dak Prescott’s drop backs. Agent Dale Cooper might call that a damn fine running back profile.

Chicago’s defense, as it was in 2024, shapes up as one of the NFL’s most pronounced run funnels. Opponents have run the ball against the Bears at a 52 percent clip in neutral game script this season. No one has given up a higher rate of rush yards before contact than the down-bad Bears. Javonte should be in all lineups in Week 3. Even folks who play in 10-team leagues should find a way to jam him into your starting lineup.

🏈 Pass Funnel Matchups

Seahawks vs. Saints

This one, I concede, could be a blowout with weird game script that makes all analysis look downright silly. The Seahawks have a vicious defense and come into this game as 7.5-point home favorites. Good luck to Spencer Rattler.

If Rattler and the Saints can keep this one relatively close, Sam Darnold and the Hawks could pass more than we might project against a New Orleans defense that has so far profiled as a pass funnel. The Saints have faced the tenth-highest neutral pass rate and the third-highest pass rate over expected this season. Even the run-first 49ers went pass-first against the Saints (more on that below).

You’re starting Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Ken Walker and maybe Zach Charbonnet, who led the Seahawks backfield in snaps and touches last week despite doing absolutely nothing with the opportunity. Cooper Kupp, coming off a seven-catch, 90-yard outing against the Steelers, looks interesting here against the pass-funnel New Orleans defense. After being targeted on a depressingly low 12 percent of his routes in Week 1, Kupp saw a target on 32 percent of his routes in Week 2. That’s strong.

If that holds up, and the Saints can hang with the Seahawks for a while, Kupp could be in for 8-10 looks against a burnable secondary. Old Man Kupp should be under (strong) consideration in 12-team PPR leagues.

49ers vs. Cardinals

Arizona’s defense has continued the suffocating play we saw from it in the final month of the 2024 season, especially against the rush. Through Week 2, the Cards have allowed the league’s tenth-lowest rushing success rate and the sixth-lowest EPA per rush. They’ve allowed the ninth-lowest rate of rush yards after contact too.

In other words, the Cardinals are a pass funnel, as you may have guessed by reading the above subheadline. Arizona’s opponents this season — the Panthers and Saints — have passed at a 71 percent clip in neutral situations. That’s … quite high.

I’m not predicting Kyle Shanahan to abandon the run here. He won’t. He never does. But tough sledding against a stout Arizona front seven could force Mac Jones to drop back and sling it more than we think he will in Week 3. Last week against the Saints, the Niners had a 50 percent neutral pass rate but were 10 percent over their expected pass rate overall. This tells us Shanny is OK with letting Jones cook, to an extent.

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