The beauty of our great sport is that change is constant. The NFL is a copycat league as coaches look to see why winners are so successful.
For example, the acceptance of analytics in play calling may not yet be universal among the 32 coaching staffs but the breeze certainly is blowing that way.
One team owner told us that not long ago he wanted to hire a couple of young data-driven staffers to create an analytics department on the football side. His veteran head coach was resistant to having the new personnel involved in any game-day strategy. The owner told the coach he was not ordering him to work with the new guys but wanted him and his assistants to have the information available in case there was a change in their thinking.
That strategic change has arrived. Bill Belichick (age 72) and Pete Carroll (73) no longer are on the sidelines. NFL coaches now are younger (average age is 43) and analytics have taken hold in front offices and coaches’ meetings. As a Washington Post story noted last weekend, football’s conventional wisdom has changed. According to the league office, NFL teams already have gone for it on 4th & 3 this season as frequently as they did on 4th & 1 when many of us were playing a decade ago.
“We see coaches becoming much more aggressive on fourth down year after year, and it has no sign of slowing down,” says former Falcons and Patriots exec Thomas Dimitroff. “The increase in passing frequency, in play-action usage, fourth-down aggression and the choices to go for two-point conversions can all be tied back to the analytics movement.”
Two years ago, NFL coaches went for it on 4th & 1 about 30 percent of the time. During the first five weeks this season, teams went for it in the same situation 70 percent of the time.
Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches such as the late Chuck Noll and Bud Grant may not have totally accepted the new culture. However, the Seahawks’ 37-year-old rookie head coach Mike McDonald has the team’s research analyst speaking directly to him through a head set during games this season.
“We’ll let the data drive a lot of the information we’re going to use, but at the end of the day, you got to make a call that you feel is best for your team and what’s best to win the game,” says McDonald. “It’s a balancing act; its not one thing or the other all the time.”
Analytics may not have officially won over the entire NFL yet but…it certainly appears as if it is winning.
