Buffalo Bills: Where are the analytics?
By Connor Price
An article from MMQB was recently written by Albert Breer documenting the depth of analytics that each team in the NFL utilizes.
It is tough to give a full run down of a team’s analytics department in a four sentence paragraph, but there was one constant. Almost every single team has some data driven company they hire or certain employees designated to exactly that.
The teams that are lagging behind in the world of analytics are dinosaurs.
It is not necessarily the case that the good teams use numbers and the bad teams don’t. The difference is that the good teams use them well, and the bad teams do not. There are thousands of statistics out there on every player out there.
Pro Football Focus records passer rating on play action plays. Also when passer rating on throws less than 2.5 seconds, and even yards per route run. Many teams pay for some of this data and so much more. But how do they utilize it?
That is the question everyone is asking.
The Bills team description stated:
"“The Bills hired Xerox exec Michael Lyons to be its director of analytics four years ago, but his role has been pretty limited since his arrival. That is about to change. Lyons and analyst Peter Linton have simply provided the information up until now, but with new GM Brandon Beane and coach Sean McDermott in place, their influence is expected to grow, and additional hires are planned for before the season begins.”"
The Bills have the longest current playoff drought running on 17 years. They have shuffled through head coaches and general managers like a deck of cards.
It is easy to compare the franchise, in recent history, to that of the Browns. The difference? The Browns have a plan.
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Cleveland is in the midst of a complete culture change. They have been bad, they are bad, so Sashi Brown and the front office knew something had to change. It had to be drastic.
An excerpt from the Browns description:
"“While the assumption is that the Browns let the numbers drive decisions, the message coming from the building has consistently been that the team is merely investing in analytics at a high level to try and ascertain their value.”"
Buffalo is closer to the playoffs than Cleveland with the number one rushing attack and a formidable quarterback. Saying that, I feel Buffalo’s antics are more of the same.
Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott are great hires in my opinion, and they have assembled a fearsome team of employees. I just hope they have the ability to change the direction of the team from what it was under the Rex Ryan area.
Some interesting tidbits from the article regarding other teams:
- Patriot’s Ernie Adams is a 64-year old former Wall Street trader who helps manages the heavily analytics based cap management the team utilizes. Adams also helps out with team activities and suggested the team practice defending the goal line slant a few years ago that won them Super Bowl 49.
- The Jets are included in the “skeptic” category says Breer. They employ just a 3-man analytics team
- “The Bears were very much a leader in analytics under Phil Emery, but that’s been scaled back since Ryan Pace arrived as GM in 2015, mostly because some decisions made based on the data didn’t work out.” This is an interesting perspective on the retraction of analytics because some things failed. This could be because of a small sample size, but every coach has a different style.
Applied mathematics and analytics were used in baseball years ago, and have just recently been on the forefront in the NFL. Numbers and statistics have always been around. They are finally being administered and utilized in making large-scale team decisions. I believe it is the right thing to do.
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Do you think the Bills should use analytics to make team decisions? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!