How Is PFF Changing the Game of Football?
Who said numbers ain’t fun? In football and sports in general, many fans try to develop a new way to connect with the game through analytics and predictions based on stats. Data research has become so important that it now determines how teams make decisions and how they operate as a whole, defining what their strategy is and even becoming the key to winning a championship. Eric Eager, VP of Research and Development at Pro Football Focus, talks with Kristen about how the analysts firm is changing the game of football with behavior science.
Research for this episode was compiled and summarized by Irrational Labs. Read and download the Pro Football Focus Citations.
Jump straight into:
(01:27) - Get to know PFF: A football data collection and analysis firm for every single player in every single game that offers an entertainment platform.
(08:39) - Trust in the numbers: On math-based playbook strategies versus intuition, risk aversion, and omission bias.
(17:15) - Behavior and decisions made under pressure: What’s behind the mistakes of a quarterback and a coach?
(24:04) - How did the analytics revolution in sports start plus why it works so differently in football.
(28:01) - Exploring the many ways data has changed football teams’ draft and trade decisions and how that impacts their money cap.
(34:58) - Drawing up trick plays meant to deceive the other team and how that applies to markets and real-life decisions.
(38:37) - Home team advantage relevance: Discussing the fans’ role when it comes to predictions.
(41:31) - What’s going to change for football in the future? Determined positions and the use of algorithms.
