The weekly Funnel Defense Ratings uses advanced data to analyze situations in which teams are more likely to pass or run than they usually do. For more of our weekly football content, visit the NFL homepage.
Earlier this season I introduced a new funnel metric; see that piece for the explanation on how I created it. The metric has some hits and misses, and there are a couple reasons it’s best thought of as descriptive rather than predictive. First, I don’t incorporate Vegas data (although I’ll include it in the ratings table below), mostly because I don’t have exact numbers on historical run/pass ratios based on Vegas spreads and implied team totals. That’s a large project perhaps for the offseason. Second, and this is important to remember, some teams simply refuse to funnel production to either part of their offense. We saw this with the Steelers in Week 5: Although the opposing Jaguars boasted an elite secondary and were the best against the pass in Football Outsiders’ Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA), Ben Roethlisberger chucked it 55 times.
I’ve given lots of my thoughts on the pros and cons of this analysis in past pieces, and we’ve written about how sometimes coaches suck at coaching football. Instead of yet another rant, let’s dive right into Week 15 funnel ratings.
Potential Shootout Games
Overall, there aren’t any games with an incredibly high combined pass funnel rating. But that’s fine: Each DFS week operates within its own ecosystem, so there are still high-value spots to target.
The Falcons-Bucs game on Monday night is projected to have warm 70 degree weather in Tampa, and owns the week’s highest combined pass funnel rating. In yesterday’s Buffet podcast, Scooch told Chad that the public is back on the Falcons after beating a great Saints team and beating this very Bucs team by 14 points back in Week 12. That game went for 54 points without Jameis Winston under center, and Julio Jones went absolutely bananas, posting 53.8 DraftKings points thanks to a 12-253-2 line on 15 targets. Tampa Bay owns the second-worst pass defense in the league this season, and, while Atlanta is more of a run funnel defense, the Bucs want to throw on offense, and they’ll likely have to as six-point dogs.
After that are seven games with pass funnel ratings between 60 and 65. The Patriots and Steelers own the highest of the main slate, although it will be difficult to fully stack this game: Tom Brady, Le’Veon Bell, Antonio Brown, and Rob Gronkowski are all the highest-priced options at their respective positions. It could be wise to target a wide receiver like Chris Hogan, who returned to action last week and leads the Patriots’ WR unit in targets inside the 10-yard line this season. With the salaries so high in this game, it might be wise to instead target a matchup like the Cardinals-Redskins, which has cheap pass-catchers — Jamison Crowder is just $5,600 and has a winnable matchup in the slot — and should be low-owned given the low game total of just 43 points.
On the opposite end, the game with the strongest combined run funnel ratings — by far — is the Texans-Jaguars affair. Jacksonville remains the strongest run funnel defense in the league, as they rank 29th against the run but first by a mile against the pass. Unfortunately for the Texans, it is unlikely they’ll be able to take advantage, as they’re currently large 11.5-point road underdogs. Houston doesn’t have a terrible run defense — they rank sixth in the league in rush DVOA currently — but the Jags love to run: They’re first in the league with a 50.2 rushing percentage. They rode first-round pick Leonard Fournette to the tune of 24 carries last week and will likely do so again as heavy home favorites. This game has the second-lowest Vegas total on the board at 39.5 points, but it might still be too high; it’s unclear how the Texans will score in this one.
Notable Potential Funnels
Easily the strongest run funnel situation in Week 15 is the Texans versus the Jaguars. Again, the high spread makes it less appealing. In fact, that is how a lot of the run funnel situations are this week: The five teams with the highest run funnel ratings are all underdogs this week. The sixth team, the Buffalo Bills, are currently 3.5-point home favorites against the Miami Dolphins, who are actually a very strong pass funnel defense; the Bills own a high run funnel rating because of their strong running game and high run play percentage. It is likely they will run the ball a lot, and they’ll especially do so if there is bad weather again: LeSean McCoy carried the ball 32 times last week in Buffalo’s winter wonderland game.
The team with the highest pass funnel rating is the Detroit Lions, who are currently 5.5-point home favorites implied for 24.8 points against the Bears. Chicago has a slight pass funnel defense, and they specifically rank 22nd in the league in DVOA to WR1s and 26th in production in the middle of the field. That bodes well for both Marvin Jones and Golden Tate, who own 19.6 and 21.7 percent of Detroit’s targets over the past four games. Eric Ebron has also gotten more involved lately, getting a team-high 25.0 percent of the targets in Week 14. Detroit faced Chicago nearly a month ago on the road, and Matthew Stafford finished with 299 yards, two touchdowns, and nearly a 70 percent completion rate. The Lions aren’t on the main slate — they play in the 4:30 p.m. ET Saturday slot — but they could certainly pay off in Saturday-only guaranteed prize pools.
As I have the past couple of weeks, I included an “Oppo” column in the first table. It is the absolute value of the difference between each team’s run/pass rating and the defense’s run/pass funnel rating. It highlights negative situations, such as when a pass-heavy team faces a team that is a strong run funnel. The team with the highest Oppo score is the Baltimore Ravens, who have a high run rating but face the strongest pass funnel defense in the Cleveland Browns. It’s probably not wise to fade the hot Alex Collins in GPPs, but, you know, it could be wise to fade Collins in GPPs. One team with a very low Oppo score is the LA Rams, who have a strong pass rating and face a Seattle defense that actually rates as a pass funnel defense. The Rams just put up 67 combined points against good defenses in the Eagles and Cardinals, and they certainly have a ton of upside as small road dogs in Seattle.
Good luck, and research the Week 15 games for yourself with our Tools and Models.
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Bryan Mears is an editor at FantasyLabs and host of the Daily Fantasy Flex podcast.
