When GM Dave Gettleman initially mocked analytics in his opening remarks two years ago, the New York Giants hadn’t yet embarked on two seasons of absolute failure.
The avoidance of analytics has been heralding of their demise, which has now resulted in the firing of head coach Pat Shurmur and the hiring of Joe Judge, an old-school, smash-mouth football coach. Well, that wasn’t exactly what we meant when we mentioned “progressiveness,” but it’s a start.
Judge brings a winning mentality from the New England Patriots, and he will have no choice but to incorporate analytical approaches into his game-plan, and that extends beyond a few computer engineers sitting in the back-office. The team needs to be actively practicing the use of probabilities and expanding on its sample size during practice.
The New York Giants are two-years behind everyone else, but they’re taking the appropriate steps now:
Co-owner John Mara seems to be finally be taking that essential step forward with the development of the organization.
“They stuck to their old ways of doing things at a time when football is changing,†former Giants offensive guard Geoff Schwartz said. “It just feels like they don’t have a plan. It’s hard when things are going really well to decide that you need to do something much different.â€
Gettleman, who’s 68-year-old, is wholly lost in the world of numbers, which has been catastrophic to the Giants in recent years. Their inability to utilize probabilities to help improve success-rate on fourth-down, etc., has been a massive negative.
The Giants don’t have a choice but to modernize with the rest of the NFL, though, as they’re now two-years behind some of the better clubs in the league. My most significant concern with the Giants right now is the average age in their front-office. With older heads making the decisions, the team will always be intertwined with an old-school, gut feeling mentality. While this isn’t always a bad thing, sometimes, it cannot compare to the analytical approach and its success rate.