The Great Analytics Rankings
Interesting article about how the Redskins are one of the worst teams in the NFL when it comes to using analytics for football operations. Has always been that way under Snyder.
"The Redskins were named by source after source as the NFL team with the least interest in using analytics in football operations. Despite Washington's massive operation on the business side, there is no analytics chief on the football side.
That wasn't true for seven weeks in 2006, when the Redskins hired Jeff Dominitz to produce statistical analysis. But then-coach Joe Gibbs indicated his disdain for analytics, saying, "We're still about people here." Soon Dominitz was gone.
The recent five-year GM tenure of Bruce Allen was likewise not an era of analytics for Washington, and there are no signs that will change anytime soon with Allen as team president. New GM Scot McCloughan comes from San Francisco, a team close to the front edge of analytics usage in the NFL, but he has a scouting background and has given no indications of an analytics-friendly approach.
With Daniel Snyder as owner since 1999, Washington has become known for inefficient spending, consistently handing out some of the worst contrasts in the NFL. The Skins are so disengaged from the advanced stats movement that even local legend Tony Kornheiser, no stathead himself, recently pleaded with them to try analytics to turn around a franchise that's gone 7-25 the past two seasons."
As compared to the Patriots...
"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."