Great article in ESPN highlighting how teams in the sport use analytics to do their scouting and coaching and overall roster management. They rank all 32 teams but for our purposes, I am just going to copy and paste the AFC East teams.
They rank them in five categories: All-in, Believer (Pats), One Foot In (Bills and Dolphins), Skeptics and Non-believers (Jets). Out of all the sports, the NFL is the most reluctant to adopt Analytics.
Pats
One NFL analytics professional called the Patriots a "big black hole" when it comes to revealing any secrets, which of course applies to most everything they do under coach Bill Belichick. But some evidence of the implementation of analytics has escaped the Patriots' gravitational field, and it suggests that the Patriots are one of the most innovative teams in the NFL.
Owner Robert Kraft worked with a former colleague in the 1990s to create statistical models for player valuation. And for the past 15 years, Belichick has relied heavily on his football research director, Ernie Adams, a former Wall Street trader who collaborates with the coach to develop a variety of cutting-edge approaches to team building and game play.
Belichick recently told The Boston Globe: "Ernie's really a great sounding board for me personally and other members of our staff. Particularly coaching staff. Strategy, rules, decisions. Ernie's very, very smart.''
One major strategy employed by the Patriots has been an arbitrage system in personnel, whether multiplying draft picks via draft day trades or moving their veteran players (such as defensive tackle Richard Seymour in 2009, receiver Randy Moss in 2010 and offensive lineman Logan Mankins in 2014) before they lose value. Based in part on such moves, the Patriots have had unmatched success in the Belichick era, with four Super Bowl rings and counting.
On the field, Belichick's approach appears less consistent. His failed fourth-down gambit against the Colts in 2009 was decried by fans but cheered by analysts who recommend that teams play more aggressively. But in other cases, he has coached rather conservatively, defying his reputation.
Regardless, there is little doubt that the Patriots invest time and energy looking for every edge, and their commitment to ruthlessly outsmarting the competition is a Belichick trademark.
Bills
Bills CEO Russ Brandon declared his intent to build a "robust" analytics department in January 2013. He hired Mike Lyons, an MIT engineering graduate, as director of analytics in October that year and heralded then-coach Doug Marrone's commitment to data via Catapult Sports' technology for monitoring exertion in practice and player health.
Buffalo's follow-through has been halting. Lyons' work didn't register with Marrone, and the coach routinely punted or kicked field goals on makeable fourth downs when a commitment to analytics would have led to a less rigid approach.
"I think you have to consider the environment in which those analytics are done," Marrone said in 2014. "Because, if it was proven that way and it was definitely a fact, I think that you would see all of us do it. None of us are going to put our teams in jeopardy to do that. . . . A lot of times, when people on the outside are looking in, I don't know if they truly understand what the data is and where it's coming from."
It remains to be seen whether the Bills can impose a more effective influence on Ryan, who employed traditional game management during his tenure with the Jets.
Dolphins
Owner Steve Ross and general manager Dennis Hickey have become proponents of analytics, and new VP of football operations Mike Tannenbaum, formerly with the Jets, is a recent convert. Ross is a heavy user of analytics in his real estate business and has been frustrated by its relative infancy in the NFL.
In the summer of 2014, the team hired Dennis Lock, who holds a graduate degree in statistics, as head analyst (now director of analytics) to "head a football analytics group." At the same time, the Dolphins announced the hiring of sports science analyst Dave Regan, and in September, Tom Pasquali, with a graduate degree in applied statistics and experience in the Yankees' front office, joined Lock's staff.
Tannenbaum said in January he was planning to hire a "sports performance director" and acknowledged, "We have a long way to go, but we started something in terms of trying to give ourselves a competitive advantage."
Miami has monitored player health for several years, and coach Joe Philbin has altered his practice schedule to improve sleep habits by becoming the only coach to give players Thursday off. But Philbin focuses on game film far more than stats, and it remains to be seen how well he'll use Miami's burgeoning analytics department.
Jets
For the past six seasons, the Jets were built around the old-school sensibilities of Rex Ryan, with line coach Dave DeGuglielmo summing up the traditional mindset with a 2012 rant against analytics: "All of a sudden we're 'Moneyballing' offensive lineman," he said. "[The] world I live in isn't a fantasy world."
Ryan's departure does not herald a new approach to analytics. Team owner Woody Johnson has given no indication analytics will be incorporated into the Jets' football operations.
New GM Mike Maccagnan, whose background is as a scout and scouting director, has spent most of his NFL career with the Houston Texans, one of the least analytics-friendly organizations in the NFL. New coach Todd Bowles comes from the Arizona Cardinals, another organization that has done little with analytics. It's safe to say that bringing analytics to the Jets was not a priority in either hire.
http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/12331388/the-great-analytics-rankings#nfl-nyj
They rank them in five categories: All-in, Believer (Pats), One Foot In (Bills and Dolphins), Skeptics and Non-believers (Jets). Out of all the sports, the NFL is the most reluctant to adopt Analytics.
Pats
One NFL analytics professional called the Patriots a "big black hole" when it comes to revealing any secrets, which of course applies to most everything they do under coach Bill Belichick. But some evidence of the implementation of analytics has escaped the Patriots' gravitational field, and it suggests that the Patriots are one of the most innovative teams in the NFL.
Owner Robert Kraft worked with a former colleague in the 1990s to create statistical models for player valuation. And for the past 15 years, Belichick has relied heavily on his football research director, Ernie Adams, a former Wall Street trader who collaborates with the coach to develop a variety of cutting-edge approaches to team building and game play.
Belichick recently told The Boston Globe: "Ernie's really a great sounding board for me personally and other members of our staff. Particularly coaching staff. Strategy, rules, decisions. Ernie's very, very smart.''
One major strategy employed by the Patriots has been an arbitrage system in personnel, whether multiplying draft picks via draft day trades or moving their veteran players (such as defensive tackle Richard Seymour in 2009, receiver Randy Moss in 2010 and offensive lineman Logan Mankins in 2014) before they lose value. Based in part on such moves, the Patriots have had unmatched success in the Belichick era, with four Super Bowl rings and counting.
On the field, Belichick's approach appears less consistent. His failed fourth-down gambit against the Colts in 2009 was decried by fans but cheered by analysts who recommend that teams play more aggressively. But in other cases, he has coached rather conservatively, defying his reputation.
Regardless, there is little doubt that the Patriots invest time and energy looking for every edge, and their commitment to ruthlessly outsmarting the competition is a Belichick trademark.
Bills
Bills CEO Russ Brandon declared his intent to build a "robust" analytics department in January 2013. He hired Mike Lyons, an MIT engineering graduate, as director of analytics in October that year and heralded then-coach Doug Marrone's commitment to data via Catapult Sports' technology for monitoring exertion in practice and player health.
Buffalo's follow-through has been halting. Lyons' work didn't register with Marrone, and the coach routinely punted or kicked field goals on makeable fourth downs when a commitment to analytics would have led to a less rigid approach.
"I think you have to consider the environment in which those analytics are done," Marrone said in 2014. "Because, if it was proven that way and it was definitely a fact, I think that you would see all of us do it. None of us are going to put our teams in jeopardy to do that. . . . A lot of times, when people on the outside are looking in, I don't know if they truly understand what the data is and where it's coming from."
It remains to be seen whether the Bills can impose a more effective influence on Ryan, who employed traditional game management during his tenure with the Jets.
Dolphins
Owner Steve Ross and general manager Dennis Hickey have become proponents of analytics, and new VP of football operations Mike Tannenbaum, formerly with the Jets, is a recent convert. Ross is a heavy user of analytics in his real estate business and has been frustrated by its relative infancy in the NFL.
In the summer of 2014, the team hired Dennis Lock, who holds a graduate degree in statistics, as head analyst (now director of analytics) to "head a football analytics group." At the same time, the Dolphins announced the hiring of sports science analyst Dave Regan, and in September, Tom Pasquali, with a graduate degree in applied statistics and experience in the Yankees' front office, joined Lock's staff.
Tannenbaum said in January he was planning to hire a "sports performance director" and acknowledged, "We have a long way to go, but we started something in terms of trying to give ourselves a competitive advantage."
Miami has monitored player health for several years, and coach Joe Philbin has altered his practice schedule to improve sleep habits by becoming the only coach to give players Thursday off. But Philbin focuses on game film far more than stats, and it remains to be seen how well he'll use Miami's burgeoning analytics department.
Jets
For the past six seasons, the Jets were built around the old-school sensibilities of Rex Ryan, with line coach Dave DeGuglielmo summing up the traditional mindset with a 2012 rant against analytics: "All of a sudden we're 'Moneyballing' offensive lineman," he said. "[The] world I live in isn't a fantasy world."
Ryan's departure does not herald a new approach to analytics. Team owner Woody Johnson has given no indication analytics will be incorporated into the Jets' football operations.
New GM Mike Maccagnan, whose background is as a scout and scouting director, has spent most of his NFL career with the Houston Texans, one of the least analytics-friendly organizations in the NFL. New coach Todd Bowles comes from the Arizona Cardinals, another organization that has done little with analytics. It's safe to say that bringing analytics to the Jets was not a priority in either hire.
http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/12331388/the-great-analytics-rankings#nfl-nyj
