Analytics and the NFL: Finding Strength in Numbers

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Paraag Marathe Kerry Wood Jersey arrived in San Francisco with a very clear directive from the 49ers, to reimagine the Jimmy Johnson draft chart. And after a couple months work, the senior associate from the Boston consulting firm Bain readied to show team president Bill Walsh and GM Terry Donahue his findings, in disbelief at the results being spit back at him. It was uncanny. “I tried to use historical trends Kyle Schwarber Jersey and true value,” says Marathe, now the Niners’ chief strategy officer and EVP of football operations. “And it wasn’t like Coach Walsh was telling me, ‘Hey, a third rounder has more value than it says here, and a second rounder has lower value.’ It was meant to be totally independent. And Mark Grace Jersey once I was finished, I looked at all of Coach Walsh’s trades over the years. And it was a total match with all of Coach Walsh’s trades.” All that work, and all that was Matt Szczur Jersey proven was what some guy on his couch down the street in Santa Clara could’ve told them: Walsh was a savant. And just the same as 16 years ago, you can place a genius in the center of it. Perception holds that the Munenori Kawasaki Jersey Patriots are among the league’s most progressive teams, but there’s precious little evidence of their investment. They have people who are responsible for advanced statistics, but coaches and scouts are largely charged with integrating data gathered into their work. The “analytics guy” there is 64-year-old Ernie Adams, a former Wall Street trader and prep school buddy of Bill Belichick’s.