Did Belichick bring Sabremetrics to the NFL?

RecoveringCowboy · Jun 14, 2014

Recently I saw Moneyball.

Maybe I don't have the definition nailed, but just before Billy Beane practiced sabremetrics to the Oakland A's, Bill Belichick at least in spirit was doing the same thing - getting pretty good players that fit the team instead of breaking the bank acquiring All-Pros.

Thoughts?

RayClay · Jun 14, 2014

How is that in any way related to sabremetrics? Lots of football coaches use statistical measures, maybe Belichick more than most, but BB uses them as a limited tool because football simply doesn't lend itself to statistical analysis the way baseball does.

He does have an economics degree, so building a team under the salary cap has given him a huge advantage the way he operates, as you noted. Still, nothing to do with sabremetrics as far as i can see.

JR4 · Jun 14, 2014

sabremetrics? (sp )

BB has been using stats at least as long as Ernie Adams has been with him.

I think I read somewhere that he and Ernie Adams sat next to each other on the plane
ride to New Orleans for the first Superbowl win.

Gwedd · Jun 14, 2014

Gotta agree with RayClay here. Any resemblance between the Patriot's practices and Sabremetrics is purely incidental. As he says, football simply has too many variables to use such a system. Baseball, on the other hand, is "The Thinking Man's Game" and lends itself very well to statistical analysis.

Ivan · Jun 14, 2014

If he did I will never forgive him.

Deus Irae · Jun 14, 2014

If using Sabremetrics means drafting Tom Brady, then yes.

Zeus · Jun 14, 2014

I guess it depends what you mean by "Sabremetrics." There's no question that not just sports, but indeed all businesses are using more quantitative decision-making tools and less pure intuitive judgment.

RecoveringCowboy · Jun 14, 2014

Zeus said:
I guess it depends what you mean by "Sabremetrics." There's no question that not just sports, but indeed all businesses are using more quantitative decision-making tools and less pure intuitive judgment.

In IT it's called Business Intelligence, Analytics, Data Warehousing, etc.

We have the ability to gather endless bits (pardon the pun) of information, then build a big picture to identify trends. It's in the news:

Google can track people
RFIDs can track consumers
NSA getting head over tracking anyone

Back to sports, Belichick seeks talent if it's in-budget, and compatible with the team. It may not be sabermetrics, but seems similar.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/magazine/12SABER.html

Deus Irae · Jun 14, 2014

RecoveringCowboy said:
In IT it's called Business Intelligence, Analytics, Data Warehousing, etc.

We have the ability to gather endless bits (pardon the pun) of information, then build a big picture to identify trends. It's in the news:

Google can track people

RFIDs can track consumers

NSA getting head over tracking anyone

Back to sports, Belichick seeks talent if it's in-budget, and compatible with the team. It may not be sabermetrics, but seems similar.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/magazine/12SABER.html

Every team seeks talent that's in-budget and compatible with the team.

RecoveringCowboy · Jun 14, 2014

^ don't disagree, but if you follow the Redskin's offseasons, Daniel Snyder will pay anything for free agents and doesn't care if it's apples to oranges. Obviously NE does this much better than Washington.

lurker1965 · Jun 14, 2014

Yup. Besides not even baseball guys can completely agree on what sabermetrics are, but yes, Belichick figured out how to apply it to an entirely different sport.

Yes, that is sarcastic, but at the same time I kinda, sorta agree with you - but have no freakin' idea how to word it. (Him playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers, but I'm good at chess and know enough about draughts to bore you with explaining how that is a flawed metaphor.

)

FirstAndGoal · Jun 14, 2014

More like Value Investment Strategy

There's a great deal of economic principles applied to his philosophy and that makes sense given his background. You stick with what you know.

RayClay · Jun 14, 2014

Deus Irae said:
Every team seeks talent that's in-budget and compatible with the team.

Not as well.

RayClay · Jun 14, 2014

FirstAndGoal said:
More like Value Investment Strategy

There's a great deal of economic principles applied to his philosophy and that makes sense given his background. You stick with what you know.

Yeah, he and Buffet would get along.

Fencer · Jun 14, 2014

1. BB was always willing to at least think in terms of a cap budget and so on, unlike -- famously -- Parcells.

2. He's long run at least a few numbers, or had them run for him. Specifically, there's some story of Jim Schwartz doing an analysis for him in Cleveland with surprising results.

3. As stated above, it's probably still impossible today to analyze football with the accuracy that baseball was analyzed in the events recorded in Moneyball.

4. The mysterious Ernie Adams notwithstanding, there's little evidence that the Patriots are great leaders in quantitative analysis.

RayClay · Jun 14, 2014

Fencer said:
1. BB was always willing to at least think in terms of a cap budget and so on, unlike -- famously -- Parcells.

2. He's long run at least a few numbers, or had them run for him. Specifically, there's some story of Jim Schwartz doing an analysis for him in Cleveland with surprising results.

3. As stated above, it's probably still impossible today to analyze football with the accuracy that baseball was analyzed in the events recorded in Moneyball.

4. The mysterious Ernie Adams notwithstanding, there's little evidence that the Patriots are great leaders in quantitative analysis.

Obviously, football players performance doesn't lend itself to analysis like baseball, but I disagree with point four there. BB probably is a leader in compliling and using data for various reasons, such as whether to punt or go for it. He just knows how to interpret stats and uses them for specific, not broad applications.

RecoveringCowboy · Jun 14, 2014

Recently, Belichick commented 99% of field goal attempts were made, so change it (forgot if he wanted to eliminate FGs entirely).

So he is into analytics.

SB39 · Jun 15, 2014

RecoveringCowboy said:
Recently I saw Moneyball.

Maybe I don't have the definition nailed, but just before Billy Beane practiced sabremetrics to the Oakland A's, Bill Belichick at least in spirit was doing the same thing - getting pretty good players that fit the team instead of breaking the bank acquiring All-Pros.

Thoughts?

I don't see much similarity between the 2 other than they each were trying to build the best team possible within the salary constraints (Belichick has to deal with a cap, Beane has to deal with cheap owners).

Beane took a radical new approach to valuing players, preferring OBP and OPS over the more traditional AVG, HR and RBI. I don't see anything like that from Belichick.

Ivan · Jun 15, 2014

Actually the answer is no, he didn't and he doesn't. If he did then they would actually pay attention to the make believe fantasy metrics put out by sites like PFF, in which case they would have been picking first every year.

RecoveringCowboy · Jun 15, 2014

I would not put Mike Florio on par with Bill Belichick on talent evaluation.

Statistics can be a tool in the right hands.

Did Belichick bring Sabremetrics to the NFL?

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