Like it or not, advanced statistics are taking over the world of sports. Especially the NFL.
Next Gen Stats gives teams data to analyze trends and player performance. Partnered with Zebra Sports, Next Gen Stats provides on-field player-tracking and captures data like location, speed, distance traveled and acceleration.
On the latest Next Pats Podcast, Phil Perry talks with VP of Zebra Sports John Pollard about the future of Next Gen Stats and how it already has changed the game.
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Some old-school NFL coaches, of course, are reluctant to utilize Next Gen Stats. Pollard explains the pitch to those coaches (we're looking at you, Andy Reid) to make them more open to using Next Gen Stats to their benefit.
New England Patriots
Most teams have a director of analytics or whatever the title might be ... the pitch has changed over time, the last couple of years in particular ... We're talking more about how do this information and technology -- how is it beneficial beyond just strength and conditioning and performances coaches. Those things are important for the health, safety, development and protection of the players, but how can we use this information for coaches and scouts?
We're the official tracking technology for the Senior Bowl. We gather that information for not only the practices, which the teams really enjoy looking at the practice information, but the game itself ... In terms of coaching staffs, what can this information provide in terms of schematics? So we have a lot of automated ways to monitor who's on the field, where their location is on the field so you can automatically generate personnel groupings without having a quality control coach do that manually or depending on a third-party service.
Pollard uses an example involving New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman to explain the types of data coaches and scouts can collect and study.
Think about a player in the Patriots' case in Julian Edelman. Think about how many snaps Julian played in the Atlanta Super Bowl. I believe it was over 90 snaps ... Julian caught a lot of passes and a lot of important passes that day for the Patriots for sure, but he's not catching a ball on every play. But he's running his routes in an explosive way. Are teams able to use this information to study offenses in the NFL?
Perry and Pollard also discuss how NFL teams are using Next Gen Stats to improve their strategy, which teams have bought into using on-field player tracking data, and much more. Perry wraps things up by going over his latest first-round mock draft.
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