Fencer
Pro Bowl Player
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2006
- Messages
- 14,293
- Reaction score
- 3,986
Not a lot new, however. Unlike Patriots, NFL slow to embrace 'Moneyball'
"The Patriots are the `Moneyball' team of the NFL, no doubt about it," said Brian Burke, founder of Advanced NFL Stats Inc.
The Patriots are notorious for being close-mouthed. Jack Mula, a former agent who from 1999 to 2008 was general counsel-player personnel for the team, said number crunching is just one part of the Patriots' philosophy. How much, he didn't want to get into.
"Yes, it's a tool, but it's one tool," Mula said. "On the carpenter's belt. It's the one that he should regularly be checking his work against."
Mula said there's far more to decision-making than numbers in the Patriots' way of thinking. While he figures nearly every club uses analytics to some degree, it's the way they use it "that probably separates New England" from most other teams. And if a club isn't crunching the numbers, "to me that explains why they'll forever be in the basement," Mula said.