DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Analytics: I Wonder............

Analytics s the buzz word of the off-season. I think it is a tool to be used in many different businesses, including football. I am very interested in analytics and have used it in the education world.

Since it is such a big deal w/the Browns and on this board, I began to wonder if analytics can be used to:

--predict if Haslam will lie to Brown's employees, the media, and the fans once again? He lied when he bought the team about how he learned from the Steeler way and valued continuity. He fired almost everyone after one year. He then lied before this season when he said that he wasn't going to blow things up. I wonder where those two things would rank if a fraud analysis was performed?

--enhance marketing optimism? You know, use demographic studies and customer segmentation to see if there really is an ass for every seat in the stadium?

--predict how many posters will call other posters "whiners," "complainers," "Negative Nancy's," "clueless," "haters," etc when the latter group doesn't completely buy-in to the latest gimmick?

--data visualization will be used by all the decision makers to make--and present--informed decisions when discussing draft picks, possible trades, roster moves, etc? Or, will there still be too many chefs in the kitchen, which hinders the group from making clear-cut decisions?

--make a predictive analysis of whether or not the Haslam's allow the football people to do their jobs or if they will once again interfere and override the expertise of the people they hired?

--do another predictive analysis of how many games the Browns will win w/in the next two years and how many more employees will lose their positions w/the Browns?

Yes, There are people trained to detect lies by the FBI. They could go through video tapes of him speaking and note the voice stress and facial cues and you could figure out the lies vs truth, come up with a stat that computes average lies per statement and predict the odds of a statement being a lie.



There is a lady that does this for the Patriots. Jessica Gelman


Most definitely and some people here would have huge metrics in this area.



That one we won't know till all the pieces are in place, but If they leave Depo alone and let him build it, I think he already knows how.



Jimmy yes, there's enough data there, not sure on Dee unless they can get data from the companies she runs.



On the first part, no, but they could give you decent odds after they acquire players. on the second part, I would think that they could only after a few years worth of data in the new system.

I know this post was rhetorical and sarcasm, but I just wanted to open your eyes a little on what it can and can't do.

Did you mean rhetorical and satirical?

Did you really create a thread for this?

LOL.

Yeah man.

What, you really didn't find any humor mixed in w/the real football stuff?

Pretty similar, but I would prefer sarcasm or sarcastic since it seemed off the cuff and not prepared.

Oh............I was actually analyzing the grammatical aspect of your sentence. I'm sorry.

Then you shouldn't substitute an adjective for a noun. I did actually mean to refer to the body of work when I used the word sarcasm.

I need to do an analytical study on that last post.

To EVERYBODY, Please, please, please, please, please watch the video linked below. Ballpeen posted this in the DePodesta Thread and I doubt but a couple of people might have checked it out. Probably because 1 hour is too long a time to spend in trying to understand something that we'll all spend the next weeks/months discussing based on little more than preconceived notions and grasping at straws looking for answers.

So many of the discussions on here about what to expect from DePodesta are based on having no idea who he is or what he thinks is important or how he addresses issues or how he might be able to help with the organization in Cleveland. It seems most of the concerns are regarding numbers.

In this video he does not even talk at all about numbers. He talks about changing thinking and how we approach things from our deeply ingrained thought process. In the story I'm making up this team needs desperately to change the way it thinks on the most basic level. It would appear that numbers are secondary after implementing strategies to change some old ideas, thought processes and outdated methods of making decisions.

I like the one thing he calls the naive question, "If we weren't already doing it this way is this the way we would start?" That alone should get a lot of Browns upper management thinking. His point is that we tend to continue doing something a certain way only because that's the way we've always done it. See, no numbers, just common sense which seems to be lacking in Berea.

I guarantee, listen to this 1 hour video of DePodesta and everyone will learn things that they can use in their daily life. Even to the degree of becoming a better poster here on the board.

He is selling nothing. So there is nothing to buy. He is not trying to convince anyone of anything. So there need be no apprehension of being bombarded.

He simply explains how he sees it.

He certainly doesn't have all the answers. Some thins he says I'm a bit wary about. But the vast majority of what he is talking about makes so much sense in changing the dysfunction in Cleveland toward the better.

An example that many Indians fans will relate to...




For God's sake people, learn a little something about the guy we are talking so much about.

The 1-hour video peen posted:

Paul DePodesta Video

If ever there has been a franchise with a faulty operating system, it's the Browns.

We've been in a constant state of "poetic justice". Bad process bad outcome.

Watch the video.

I watched it yesterday and he's not lying. Very informative.

The best way I can describe Depodesta is, for so long we have lacked the systems to properly evaluate talent. This is a guy who has built an extremely successful and winning career on building a system to evaluate talent. You can't watch those videos and look back on his career stops, where they were when he got there and when he left and not come away optimistic.

Pee in your wheaties?

I personally found it to be funny.

What does that video have to do with this thread?

Thanks. It was intended to be humorous while pointing out that Haslam's interference has been a problem for this team and it's hard for me to trust him at this point.

Determine ...If Vers mental and physical health will deteriorate if left with being a fan of a team that can't produce a winner in the next 2-3 seasons.

Determine... If Vers mental and physical health would improve if he became a fan of the Minnesota Vikings and had posters of Teddy Bridgewater on his man cave walls..

Determine.. If Analytics can prove that Analytics works.

Good post Vers, all in fun..

It has to do with answering or giving some light to some of the questions you asked both here and in other threads.


To your first point in this thread it addresses some of the type of things that will be implemented that will discourage Haslem's temptation to lie about things, especially to employees within the organization.

Some of the other things you called lies I don't see as lies. You say he lied when he said he learned continuity from the Steelers and then fired almost everyone after one year. I don't think he lied. I think he thought he did learn. In his most recent presser he admitted he was wrong, that the job was much bigger than the thought. He came close to saying that the job was too big for him. He said he needed help.

So I don't think he lied about that. In his presser he admitted they came into it naive. That explains a lot plus it took a lot of balls to say that.

You say he lied when he said back in August that would not blow things up at the end of the year. The only way that was a lie would have been if he knew when he said that that he was going to blow things up at the end of the year. That would have made it a lie. But in the story I'm making up he felt pretty good with 7 wins and expected to equal or better that.

Little did he know Farmer would cast off good players, the ones that got the team to 7 wins, and replace them with either older, slower or younger, inexperienced guys. Haslem's figuring that's an upgrade, as did many. You claimed that it was a mistake. It turned out to be a mistake.

So I think Haslem was surprised we sunk to 3 wins. Harder schedule or not.

Everyone has the right to change their mind. I think he's been working on the re-organization of the FO for months. He may have kept his football guys still. But I also think once the season got ridiculous, and likely someone clued him in on the roster changes, he decided to make wholesale changes which included firing Farmer and Pettine.

He probably figured the team was at an all-time low so he decided on a complete shake-up of the organization. To seriously get some help in making it right from the "new" beginning. As DePodesta said in his naive question, "If we weren't already doing things this way, is this the way we would start?". Real good question. Look at everything and be willing to do things differently even if it means getting egg on his face, eating some crow and admitting he was wrong.

So besides firing his football guys he promoted Brown and hired DePodesta to change the FO strategy starting from the top down.

That means he will have to accept blame too, which he's already done, and he will have to change his methods as well. He seems he's willing. Embarrassed but willing.

That is the main area the video has to do with this thread. To hear how DePodesta looks at an organization gives a preview into how he and Brown will re-organize the FO part of the organization as well as insure the football ops will be aligned to promote working together with the goal of eliminating the dysfunction.

There's a lot of good information in that video which aids in understanding the thought process.


The other points you made were questions regarding analytics that were obviously based in humor as you asked analytis to foretell things impossible to predict. Good points, those. But unanswerable by any means other than waiting them out. Time will tell.

As I see it it's awfully hard to respond to the thread starter because so much of it is questions aimed at listing, (let me be careful to not say complaints here), concerns that have gone on in the past and wondering if analytics will be able to predict good fortune moving foreward.

Good post...its not what Haslam is saying per-say that has me excited...as others have said he has said this same stuff before...but not really..he did say things in his presser that I thought was very revealing and you mentioned them in your post.

But its the system and way he is wanting to do things that has me excited...I think IF he gets the right people and IF he has patience it will work...so I guess its the system that has me excited...Ive used this stuff in my professional life and it works...it wasnt football but the system is sound.

The only problem being..Haslam gets the right people to align with the principles of it...and I think he will...JMHO

You are starting to sound like mac.........just w/a different message.

Lets not go crazy now Vers

LOL...........you gotta admit that rational behind "he didn't tell lies" parts were a bit mac-esque.

Brian Billick: You can’t do Moneyball in the NFL

Posted by Michael David Smith on January 7, 2016, 9:05 AM EST LINK

Can a Moneyball approach work in the NFL?

That’s the question everyone is asking this week in response to the Browns hiring Paul DePodesta, the analytics maven who was prominently featured in the book Moneyball and played by Jonah Hill (in a largely fictionalized role) in the movie. DePodesta has had success applying the analytical approach commonly referred to as Moneyball during his tenure with the Cleveland Indians, Oakland Athletics and New York Mets, but many in the NFL world are skeptical that the same approach can work in the NFL.

Count Super Bowl-winning former Ravens coach Brian Billick as one of the skeptics. Billick said today on Mike & Mike that Moneyball simply isn’t going to work in the NFL.

“One of the most common questions I get is, Can you do Moneyball, for lack of a better term, in the NFL? And the answer is, No, you can’t,” Billick said. “You can’t quantify the game of football the way you do baseball. It’s not a statistical game. The parameters of the game, the number of bodies and what they’re doing in conjunction with one another.”

Billick is clearly correct that statistical analysis in football is not as advanced as it is in baseball. Most football analytics people would freely admit that. Baseball is a fundamentally different sport, in which one player’s performance is less reliant on his teammates’ performances, and therefore the statistics of a baseball player are a much better reflection of his own value than are the statistics of a football player.

But DePodesta is presumably smart enough to know that. The question, then, is not whether football statistics are as beneficial as baseball statistics, but whether DePodesta’s analytical approach to football statistics can find advantages over teams that don’t use the same approach. That’s a question that we haven’t seen answered yet because no NFL team has gone all-in on analytics the way teams like the Oakland A’s have in baseball. But DePodesta’s hiring is a big moment in the NFL: If he finds strategic advantages that help the Browns become winners, other teams will seek to emulate his approach. If DePodesta fails, analytics in football will take a hit.

Even more important than the fundamental differences in the sports of football and baseball are the fundamental differences in the business practices of Major League Baseball and the National Football League. For starters, the whole idea of the “money” in Moneyball was that the Oakland A’s had a lot less money to spend on players than the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Anaheim Angels, which meant that the A’s had to find a way to compete on the cheap. But in the NFL, with revenue sharing and a salary cap, that’s really not an issue. The Browns have the same amount of money as a big-market rival like the New York Jets, and the same amount of money as a small-market rival like the Buffalo Bills.

So where DePodesta thrived at finding ways to help small-market teams compete by identifying valuable but inexpensive players (and then helped the big-market Mets win the pennant by identifying valuable players for a team that could spend whatever it took to acquire them), in Cleveland he has a different job. With the Browns, DePodesta isn’t looking for better values as much as he’s looking more broadly for better strategic practices. His success or lack thereof will go a long way toward determining whether the rest of the league agrees or disagrees with Billick’s premise that Moneyball can’t work in the NFL.

No comment...I am laughing though

God I could never stand Billick....and where has he coached or run a team since he left Baltimore?? Honest question I dont keep up with football like I used to..

I wonder if we can call the new brain trust - Haslem and the Harvard Wonderkids

I am going to be very critical of the coaching and GM hires


They have to get the down in the dirt football people on board and convinced - the quality of what has been built will manifest in who they can get to join.

Very informative video. Thanks for posting it. Still a ton of unknowns about how this will roll out & the amount of reliance on analytics but can appreciate some sort of process that tries to eliminate inefficiencies in the decision-making process.

Billick can't spell I.Q. but he can spell EGO.

Hahaha, thanks.

Well, if I tell you I'll meet you at the game on Sunday and then Sunday morning I get hit on the noggin with a meteor and can't make the trip... did I lie?

OR...

If I tell you I'll meet you at the game on Sunday and then Sunday morning I get a chance to get laid so I don't make the trip... did I lie?


I didn't knowing lie when I told you that either way.


Sometimes things change.

Yes you did! She wouldn't touch you with a ten foot pole.

When you say you aren't going to blow things up at the end of the year and then you do?

You lied.

Meh, things change.

.

.

Listen............y'all can buy into what the Haslams are selling. I have no problem w/that. However, I am not buying into it. Too much history. Heck, we haven't even brought up the stuff that happened w/Pilot.

I don't trust him or her. That doesn't mean that you guys should feel the same way. It means that I do not trust him. Simple as that!

He is going to have to SHOW me this time..........not TELL me.

I would trust Haslam as far as I could throw him.

The guy would sell his own mother for an extra buck.