Fantasy Football Week 5: Seahawks vs. Bucs, Texans vs. Ravens, 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. Through Week 4, we now have enough information to understand which teams are shaping up as funnel defenses.

Ranking and evaluating all of Week 5’s top plays at quarterback, running back, receiver, tight end, kicker and defense.

Pass Funnel Matchups

Seahawks vs. Bucs

I’ve written this column for two seasons and change now, and through the time, I’m sure of a few things: I’m going to overuse the words “pronounced” and “extreme,” I’m going to cite metrics that could induce a coma for spreadsheet haters, and I will write about the Tampa Bay Bucs defense.

That’s because, as loyal readers know well, the Bucs are always a pass funnel. Tampa’s front seven has stalled opposing rushing attacks for years now, forcing them to the air even when they don’t want to take to the air. The 2025 season -- through four games -- is no different. Tampa opponents are averaging a 61 percent neutral pass rate, the NFL’s eighth highest mark largely because they stop the run before it starts. Only the Browns give up a lower rate of rush yards before contact than the Bucs. Tampa allows a league-low EPA per rush.

Please don’t misunderstand me here. The Seahawks will try to be run-heavy in Week 5 against Tampa. My bet is that they won’t find much success and be forced to lean on Sam Darnold and a spicy little passing offense developing in Seattle. Darnold has been personally responsible for a molar-grinding epidemic in Minnesota as he continues playing well — really well — a year after playing well — really well — as the Vikings’ starter.

With a completion rate over expected of 10.4 percent, Darnold through four games is easily the NFL’s most accurate passer. A mere three QBs have a higher EPA per drop back. Only Lamar Jackson and Jordan Love have a higher adjusted yards per attempt than Darnold. Let those teeth grind, Vikings faithful.

What I’m saying is that the Seahawks might actually be comfortable letting it rip via the pass game in Week 5 against the run-funnel Bucs. Jaxon Smith-Njigba, as Seattle’s distant WR1, could obviously cook if the Hawks lean on the pass here. Cooper Kupp would have a shot too after being targeted on a surprisingly high 25 percent of his routes over the past three games. Running about half the pass routes in Seattle’s offense, rookie WR Tory Horton could also benefit from a pass-funnel matchup.

I suppose it could put Elijah Arroyo in play. Last week Arroyo, splitting tight end routes with AJ Barner, was targeted on 26 percent of his routes.

Chiefs vs. Jaguars

No one — not even his friends and family — is champing at the bit to play Isiah Pacheco in fantasy leagues of any size. An anonymous source deep within the Pacheco family confirmed this for me. Tough but fair, I said.

The same goes for big, slow Kareem Hunt. Nobody really wants to play either guy in the Kansas City backfield because, well, they stink. Don’t bother with Hunt or Pacheco in Week 5 against Jacksonville. The Jaguars are snuffing out enemy rushing attacks. Only two teams have allowed a lower rate of rush yards after contact than the Jaguars, and no team has faced a higher neutral pass rate (67 percent) in 2025. The run-stuffing Jags have allowed the league’s lowest rushing success rate through Week 4.

The Chiefs are going to throw it here, and throw it a lot here. That’s a plus for a few guys, including Xavier Worthy, who enters Week 5 as a screaming (positive) regression candidate. Even Travis Kelce and Hollywood Brown might be relevant with a spike in drop backs for Patrick Mahomes.

Matthew Berry reveals the 10 Facts You Need to Know Before Week 5, including why Drake Maye is ready to shine on SNF.

Run Funnel Matchups

Patriots vs. Bills

We at Rotoworld are still looking strongly into how, exactly, Drake Maye and Stefon Diggs had rock solid fantasy outings in Week 4 with the Patriots dropping back to pass a league-low 23 times.

The answer — once we’re done with our weeklong examination — will probably have something to do with Maye’s hyper-efficiency -- he completed 14 of his 17 throws at 12 yards per attempt -- and Diggs absolutely dominating targets. Diggs, in fact, saw 38 percent of the Patriots’ targets. Maye threw it Diggs’ way on 41 percent of his routes. He ended up with 101 yards on six receptions.

If that continues in Week 5 against Diggs’ former mates, it will be because Maye and Diggs have continued their wildly efficient ways. You see, the Bills defense is one of the NFL’s most pronounced run funnels this season. Opponents are passing the ball on just 48 percent of their snaps in neutral game script, the second lowest rate in the league. Buffalo opponents are a combined 9 percent below their expected pass rate, the lowest mark in the NFL.

New England, barring some weird game script, is going to once again operate as a run-first offense here. A massively pass-heavy Week 1, which triggered head coach Mike Vrabel into oblivion, makes the Pats look like a pass-first team. They’re not. Maye and Diggs and maybe Hunter Henry are startable, but none of them are likely to have drop back volume on their side against a Bills run defense being gouged to the tune of 2.64 yards before contact per rush. Only the Bears have been worse in 2025.

Texans vs. Ravens

Predicting game script in a Lamar-less Ravens game is a dangerous little game. I want to feel alive, so I’ll give it a shot. Cooper Rush, if you’re listening: Don’t be bad.

Houston is a 1.5 point favorite as of this writing. That’ll jump at least a couple points once Lamar Jackson is ruled out with the hamstring injury he picked up in Week 4. So the Texans should have plenty of neutral and positive script with which to work, and that could be a nice little development for Woody Marks a week after he appeared to take lead back duties from mega-washed Nick Chubb.

Marks in Week 4 logged 17 rushes to 13 for Chubb. The rookie saw five targets on 14 pass routes while Chubb had two targets on eight routes. If you squint, this might constitute a takeover. It appears the Texans, in any case, are ready to give Marks a shot to be the 1A to Chubb’s 1B.

Marks and Chubb will take on a Baltimore defense facing a 50 percent pass rate in neutral script. Baltimore’s banged-up defense has faced the tenth lowest pass rate over expected through four weeks. While the Ravens aren’t a terrible run defense, they’re not good either. They’re allowing the 14th highest rush yards before contact and a top-10 rate of explosive rushes. Only four teams have given up more rush yards after contact.

Facing the run-funnel Ravens, Marks should have every chance to see 15 touches in this one if game script is even somewhat normal.