Analytical Moneyball Hocus Pocus?

[jpdex12]

I am not trying to create yet one more do we believe Russ Brandon thread but how can we be one of the clubs to come out and announce this analytical money ball process we are going to hang our hats on? We all know some other clubs that operate in this manner but what is with all of this publicity that Russ is bringing to us about this method? Like he's just discovered the fountain of youth?

What ever happened to just hiring solid people with proven backgrounds that get the job done? We have failed miserably over the past 15 years at this time and time again. Based on statistical odds, shouldn't we eventually get it right at least a few times out of many?

I'm not buying into this analytical moneyball crap. It sure sounds like more salesmanship BS from Russ. Just take a look at all of the moves we have made since the glory days and you can see a common theme. The same guys in the same positions making poor decisions. The only good they have done is that they have continually kept pumping money into Ralph's pockets year in and year out and they have produced a horrible product for us to view.

Since 1994 this team is 136 and 168. We have had five winning seasons out of 19 yrs. Seven coaches in the last 15 yrs. 10 QBs in the last 16 yrs. There is no secret formula to success. It's a common sence recipe. Draft young talent and keep the good core players. Select good FA talent to fill in the cracks. Maintain a healthy balance of spending and cutting with regard to the cap. Hire good management to make the big decisions and hire coaches that get it! We have done none of this for the past 15 yrs and that is why we watch crap every year. Now we are going to pull the white rabbit out of the magic hat and win the super bowl from it?

I want to be optimistic but I feel more and more like Op used to sound.

[DynaPaul]

Well, if they really used that analytical method earlier we never would have signed Fitz to that dumb contract extension or let prime free agents like Jabari Greer go. Hopefully Brandon's new method will put an end to that.

[notacon]

NFL football is not like major league baseball.

The only "analytical" thinking needed is to get a freakin QB!!!!!

All the rest is bull****.

GET A QB!!!

[ServoBillieves]

I love buzzwords.

[hemi13]

NFL football is not like major league baseball.

The only "analytical" thinking needed is to get a freakin QB!!!!!

All the rest is bull****.

GET A QB!!!

Your so wrong. I'm taking a college course and it's called analytics. It's a pure science that works in a lot more than just the sports world.
Businesses use it, engineers use it... and so on.

[Typ0]

NFL football is not like major league baseball.

The only "analytical" thinking needed is to get a freakin QB!!!!!

All the rest is bull****.

GET A QB!!!

but analytics will help inform you which one is best...

[Typ0]

I am not trying to create yet one more do we believe Russ Brandon thread but how can we be one of the clubs to come out and announce this analytical money ball process we are going to hang our hats on? We all know some other clubs that operate in this manner but what is with all of this publicity that Russ is bringing to us about this method? Like he's just discovered the fountain of youth?

What ever happened to just hiring solid people with proven backgrounds that get the job done? We have failed miserably over the past 15 years at this time and time again. Based on statistical odds, shouldn't we eventually get it right at least a few times out of many?

I'm not buying into this analytical moneyball crap. It sure sounds like more salesmanship BS from Russ. Just take a look at all of the moves we have made since the glory days and you can see a common theme. The same guys in the same positions making poor decisions. The only good they have done is that they have continually kept pumping money into Ralph's pockets year in and year out and they have produced a horrible product for us to view.

Since 1994 this team is 136 and 168. We have had five winning seasons out of 19 yrs. Seven coaches in the last 15 yrs. 10 QBs in the last 16 yrs. There is no secret formula to success. It's a common sence recipe. Draft young talent and keep the good core players. Select good FA talent to fill in the cracks. Maintain a healthy balance of spending and cutting with regard to the cap. Hire good management to make the big decisions and hire coaches that get it! We have done none of this for the past 15 yrs and that is why we watch crap every year. Now we are going to pull the white rabbit out of the magic hat and win the super bowl from it?

I want to be optimistic but I feel more and more like Op used to sound.

The problem we have been having is **** flows downstream ... so everything people were trying to do was getting dumped on by above.

[Buddo]

Like many other things, it has value, but it isn't the be-all, end-all.
Brandon quite categorically stated that scouting is still the Bills lifeblood. The analytics, will be in part business related, especially, I'd guess, in relation to cap management, but will also provide tools to assist in evaluation, of all sorts of things.
Brandon sees it as a 'tool to have in your war chest', rather than some sort of panacea.
TBh, my view on it, is sort of in line with my view of the classic QB Rating method. It's a useful indicator of performance, but it doesn't tell the whole story.
However, I do also see that it can be a useful tool in assessing where things have gone both right and wrong within a set of performances. If it can identify something that has been missed elsewhere, then it will have value.

[Mike]

I am not trying to create yet one more do we believe Russ Brandon thread but how can we be one of the clubs to come out and announce this analytical money ball process we are going to hang our hats on? We all know some other clubs that operate in this manner but what is with all of this publicity that Russ is bringing to us about this method? Like he's just discovered the fountain of youth?

What ever happened to just hiring solid people with proven backgrounds that get the job done? We have failed miserably over the past 15 years at this time and time again. Based on statistical odds, shouldn't we eventually get it right at least a few times out of many?

I'm not buying into this analytical moneyball crap. It sure sounds like more salesmanship BS from Russ. Just take a look at all of the moves we have made since the glory days and you can see a common theme. The same guys in the same positions making poor decisions. The only good they have done is that they have continually kept pumping money into Ralph's pockets year in and year out and they have produced a horrible product for us to view.

Since 1994 this team is 136 and 168. We have had five winning seasons out of 19 yrs. Seven coaches in the last 15 yrs. 10 QBs in the last 16 yrs. There is no secret formula to success. It's a common sence recipe. Draft young talent and keep the good core players. Select good FA talent to fill in the cracks. Maintain a healthy balance of spending and cutting with regard to the cap. Hire good management to make the big decisions and hire coaches that get it! We have done none of this for the past 15 yrs and that is why we watch crap every year. Now we are going to pull the white rabbit out of the magic hat and win the super bowl from it?

I want to be optimistic but I feel more and more like Op used to sound.


Very simply because of the new CBA & cap floor this is the Bills way of selling us yet anther retired idea which is the 2013 Version of Cash to Cap. In other words, don't expect top of the line quality hires both in the FO, HC, & Players!

[JoeMama]

God, Russ Brandon is such a huckster.

This Moneyball BS is just another bogus stunt to make fans believe there's a magic bullet to solve all our woes.

I bet you he saw the movie Moneyball and thought it would be an easy grift to dazzle the fans with "numbers" and "sabermetrics" because WTF do we know? We're just rubes who will take their word for it that they have all these super smart analytic tools behind closed doors.

Puh-leaze. I hope the fans don't buy this crock.

Russ Brandon truly flatters himself if he thinks he's Billy Beane.

[jpdex12]

I'd feel much better just to see the solid coaching hire of a younger coordinator with a no nonsense approach (somewhat hard nosed) and then see him build a strong strength and conditioning program and hire a proven offensive coordinator to work with a new, young QB. Of course he would take a common sense approach and just focus on the basics...out block, out tackle, out hustle and out coach the other team with consistency!

[trapezeus]

it's not that analytics won't work, i just don't think that stats alone are the key.

Look at investing...there are funds that invest solely on the numbers and quantitatively back into things. they have no idea how a segment or industry works, they simply look at a complex set of figures and derive their investment idea.

and there are guys who specialize in an area and look at the numbers but also look at trends that they know from years in the field.

Which fund would you rather invest with? the quant guys do well, but occassionally when the numbers don't work, they'll have found themselves in a terrible situation and found out there is one thing they didn't think of.

The balanced guys tend to look at the numbers and then look at anomlies and such.

For the bills, i just don't think the data is robust enough to create a reliable model in absense of a guy who watches the game and says, "it's curious that our 3rd down and longs are almost always stopped because our qb rarely throws more than 7 yards in the air. i think that means we need a better qb who has more tangibles than a guy who is like, "well we need to find a qb who can throw 8 yards."

[IlluminatusUIUC]

Analytics aren't a magic bullet, but no one who truly studies them considers them so. It's just another means of looking ag data. And frankly analytics might have saved us from doing dumb things like dumping first rounders of halfbacks three separate times this last decade or punting from inside an opponents 35, in a dome, on two separate occasions.

[trapezeus]

illuminatusUIUC, i agree, the analytics can be a factor, but it should be a "let's save money and stop scouting at stadium because we built a model we trust"

In the end you need a person who can read the data and request additional data.

that requires smart football people at the top which is something i know this team has been lacking for years.

[NOT THE DUDE...]

qb and elite edge rushers....

simple as that

[IlluminatusUIUC]

illuminatusUIUC, i agree, the analytics can be a factor, but it should be a "let's save money and stop scouting at stadium because we built a model we trust"

In the end you need a person who can read the data and request additional data.

that requires smart football people at the top which is something i know this team has been lacking for years.

Well, no team should ever replace scouts with accountants. You still need to look at the players and make decisions taking everything into account. But analytics expose new ways of looking at the game that challenge the conventional wisdom (which is frequently wrong).

[GingerP]

It is difficult to come up with metrics that measure performance in football because stats don't measure productivity like they do in baseball. OPS in baseball is an accepted metric for defining hitters, and there are many others. There aren't equivalent measures in football. If they can come up with them, then statistical analysis will be helpful, but I don't think accepted metrics exist for the NFL.

[psubills62]

First of all, using analytics does not necessarily mean a Moneyball approach.

That said, has anyone tried to use analytics in football yet? If they simply use as another factor (in addition to scouting, etc.) when making decisions on personnel, what's the problem?

So the Bills look to make a bit of a change in how they evaluate personnel and people complain because...the old way worked so well for the Bills? I don't know if this will work, but I'm interested to see where this goes.

[TedMock]

There is some confusion about how football analytics work. "Moneyball" is a broad term that is unfairly used to describe any sort of statistical approach to analyzing sports. It was a book title, not really an offical term. Even Sabremetrics is too broad. Moneyball of baseball and Moneyball of football are not the same. Several teams (I would assume most teams) use statistical analysis. Some have full departments, some don't. Belichick has had Adams follow him around his entire career to do similar work.

They are not talking about measuring basic stats. You don't need an analytics department to measure Comp %, YPA, YPC, tackles, sacks, etc. That's stupid. Where you should break down is using every single detail. Not all 4 yard runs are equal, for example. How fast was the hole hit? How fast did it open? What did the line do (zone, man-up, trap, etc)? What defensive personnel were on the field (whether or not they made the tackle)? What defensive alignment was used? Where on the field? What was the score? Was it a touchdown? These are just some things. There are many, many more. A VERY BASIC example would be you're up by 20 points and grinding out the clock while the defense is in run-stopping mode hoping to get the ball back vs. your're down by 20 points and the defense is in pass mode knowing that you're trying to get back in the game by throwing and getting out of bounds to save time.

That was more of a tactical example. There are also measurements you would use to help with physical evaluation. Simple things like combine tests are one thing. There's a reason people time the 10 yard splits of the 40. How fast do you get to top speed? How fast does a guy get off the ball? How fast do his arms get up? How explosive is his step/drive? How explosive is his punch? How fast does he counter-move? Things like this weighed along with broad jumps, forty times, etc are put together to see how one may measure up against greater competition, or how wall one may transition to a different position or style of play. Again, this is just a basic run-through.

Finally, this a great tool to assist in evaluating, but it should compliment scouting. You still have to spend just as much time watching a guy play, watching his emotional reactions when things go right, go wrong. How often he takes plays off, how often balls are dropped, mishandled, etc. You still have to conduct due diligence by speaking with coaches and teachers and anybody else you can to weigh character. It's not a one tool job. Smart teams do a lot of everything and there is still no guarantee that a guy pans out.

[Historian]

God, Russ Brandon is such a huckster.

.

Amen.