Kafka on analytics

[MightyGiants]

From the Athletic


Giants offensive coordinator Mike Kafka and the staff in New York have a great understanding of analytics, and they are leveraging their analytics department to gain edges in multiple ways.

"The (analytics) guys here do an awesome job of, 'Hey, here's things that happened around the league. Here are things we can learn from. Here are things that build in the database of situations that we got to talk about,'" Kafka said. "And for me as a play caller, 'Here are things that you need to be prepared for and take a peek at this game or this clip, and what would you call in this situation.' And then kind of giving you a multiple choice question and go, 'Alright, if you chose this, your win percentage increased by two percent. If you did this, it increased by 12. If you did this, increase by 20 percent.'"

The Giants were up 27-20 with 15 seconds left on fourth down in their 27-22 upset win over the Packers in London. Backed up to their own end zone, instead of punting, they elected to take an additional five seconds off the clock by having their punter stall before going out of bounds to take a safety. They gave up two points and opened a chance for the Packers to win the game with only a touchdown, rather than tie it with a touchdown and extra point. But the made the touchdown less likely by taking away the chance for two plays (the Packers were out of timeouts). New York also got a better punt off after the safety, which was from its own 20 rather than its own end zone. The Packers got the ball on their own 36 and Aaron Rodgers was sacked on a Hail Mary attempt.

Kafka credited the analytics department for preparing the team for that very specific situation.

"You can kind of play the game a little bit and have a little bit more of an edge when you're kind of playing with the numbers a little bit and understanding like, 'this decision right here could help us, could give us a better chance to win by X percentage,' and in some cases, 12 percent might not sound like a lot, but in the grand scheme of it when you're really looking at the whole season or the number of times that situation comes up, that's going to help you win," Kafka said. "It's going to help you win a game. It's going to help you win a crucial situation to help put yourself in place."

https://theathletic.com/4699367/2023/07/28/nfl-advanced-analytics-data/?source=user_shared_article

MORE


During practice (In-season and offseason)

Coaches also love to look at GPS numbers from practice and see which players are hitting speed goals and which aren't. These numbers help them evaluate a player's conditioning and fitness and help with injury prevention.

Kafka said he could look at specific receivers using tracking data and see why they are being worn out. Maybe on their third-down days, they're tiring because they had to run too many downfield routes. The coaches could look and decide if that receiver needs more work on other types of routes or plays, which helps Kafka script practice and manage players' workload.

He can create data points on plays, too. If a player keeps making mental errors on the same or similar concepts, he can rethink how he is coaching it. When he looks at the analytical data points from his QBs from OTAs, he could decide whether he wants to allocate more or less time to certain concepts in training camp.

[Jolly Blue Giant]

That game in London is a GREAT example of using analytics to create a big advantage. First time I've heard how it actually helps in a specific situation. Genius

The GPS tracking tells a lot. Although, Schoen and Daboll have both said (concerning receivers) it's "all about separation", which is why Hodgins was so effective, even though he's not a speedster. But tracking "speed during plays" can expose coverage issues and "real" game speed, which is far different from running in a straight line...I would think anyway 

[DaveBrown74]

I am very glad our coaching staff appreciates the value analytics can add to your arsenal of tools.

[Gmo11]

I am very glad our coaching staff appreciates the value analytics can add to your arsenal of tools.

Certainly a far cry from their predecessors punting at every possible opportunity seemingly for the fun of it.

[Painter]

I hope that will reassure the many critics of analytics that it can be of great value when well-developed and properly used, and also not confuse it with baseball's silliness with things like spin rate and launch angle.

Cheers!