A lot of talk about analytics and Rivera makes it known he is not an analytics guy. Article does show Rivera in a very positive light. He’s definitely an old school, throwback coach.
The article also references all of the bad HC hires new owners have made recently.
| For my first story for The Ringer in 2016, I wrote about friction between coaches, front offices, and the league office caused by the spread of analytics and technology. It included a bit on the debate among coaches about how much and what kinds of technology they wanted to implement in the game. In the reporting process, I’d heard that Rivera had given an impassioned plea at a league meeting against technology—specifically increased video technology on the sideline during games. I asked him whether he wanted to comment on what I’d heard—he got on the phone within about an hour and not only confirmed what he said but repeated it verbatim to me for use in the article. Rivera told me he thought it was unfair to have live video and other technological mechanisms on the sideline because it would minimize the value of the work coaches put in. He told me: “Where does it end? Can you get text messages or go out there with an iPhone and figure out where to go? What are we creating? I know there are millennial players, but this is still a game created 100 years ago. … I want to get beat on the field. I don’t want to get beat because someone used a tool or technology.” |
| Who the Panthers will hire is less obvious than who will go after Rivera, which is basically every team in need of a coach who can’t get an offensive star like Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley. Last month, when Tottenham Hotspur sacked its talented manager, Mauricio Pochettino, I tweeted that if the guy you just fired instantly becomes the best available option for your competitors, you probably should have kept him. What’s happening with Rivera is something slightly different: Rivera is the best option for a lot of teams, but not the Panthers. There is still a place for Ron Rivera in the modern NFL—and there will probably be a lot of room for David Tepper in the modern NFL, too. |
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In comment 14703741 UberAlias said:
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The analytics guys have a lot of catching up to reach his success.
Sure he's not.
And Kraft Analytics Group is just studying cheese from their offices in Foxboro.
Next time do some research before making a dumbass reply. “Less than zero” stock, not his thing. That’s his own words. Link - ( New Window )
Right, I'm the one who needs to do research.
If you think that KAGr doesn't exist entirely as the growth of what began as an internal data analysis initiative in Patriots HQ, you're kidding yourself.
But Belichick is always honest and forthright with the media, right?
Fucking clueless.
It's a Kraft owned business. Are you suggesting Kraft can't understand the value of data in sports or business or build a side business if BB doesn't run his team off a laptop? He's a smart f-ing business man. You do know the Giants have an Analytics group too, right? Does that make DG a huge analytics guy? Of course not. Every team has one -all over sports, and you know it. And Kraft is a very smart business man --you know that too. He has his hands in a lot of things --sports related, and unrelated. One does not mean the other --unless of course you believe BB is the drive behind all Kraft investments. Shouldn't have to point this out. Zero incentive here for BB to flat out lie when asked a direct question --not mislead, not evade, but flat out lie. But hey, because his boss is making money providing a service in a hot industry everyone in sports has a hand in, he mist be, right? Sure...
Let me be clear, no one in sports has an analytics operation that is really comparable to what Kraft has in KAGr. All franchises have analytics departments, but not all dedicate the same resources, headcount, salaries, etc., and strictly from just what is available publicly, even a layperson can see that the Patriots have assembled a far more robust analytics operation than most (if not all) teams, and certainly more than what the Giants have.
I can't believe this is even a real debate - the Patriots built an analytics department that became its own autonomous company in KAGr, which has teams in other sports as clientele, whereas the Giants handed the leadership of their analytics department to an existing executive (Abrams). Even if it's not an indictment of the Giants' use of analytics, it's not remotely apples-to-apples to compare them to the gold standard in KAGr.
Beyond that, if you think that Kraft built a sports-focused analytics company that his own franchise isn't using, you're nuts. And I can unequivocally guarantee you that Belichick uses analytics, both from KAGr and directly from Ernie Adams. It's well known that he does. If you want me to try to apply amateur psychology to why BB might lie to the media, you're barking up the wrong tree - I'm not about to assume his motives, but I don't think it's outlandish to think that he might see some value in opacity regarding his use of analytics. Either way, it's irrelevant, IMO. He does use them, regardless of what he said.
The Giants are utilizing analytics and they have Siam in charge of it, but a lot of posters overlook that or dismiss it and instead latch onto Gettleman's quote about analytics and they extrapolate out that the team is doing little.
Heck, we've even had discussions about how looking at Siam's LinkedIn profile actually has been used against him as being capable.
The Giants put an importance on data and shurmur, in game, has actually been using game theory decisions quite frequently. But we are losing, people are frustrated and instead use the losing to confirm that analytics aren't used properly.
The rub is that analytics is all about amassing data and mining it to make the best decisions. The results of analytics won't be seen until many years down the road.
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In comment 14703728 UberAlias said:
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In comment 14703592 Gatorade Dunk said:
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In comment 14703577 UberAlias said:
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The analytics guys have a lot of catching up to reach his success.
Sure he's not.
And Kraft Analytics Group is just studying cheese from their offices in Foxboro.
You do realize NYG has analytics group too, right? Is Shurmur a big analytics guy? I’m going by what BB has said himself. He’s been asked these questions directly and stated he goes by what he thinks, not numbers. But think what you want — maybe he’s lying.
An analytics GROUP? As in comparable to what Kraft built in KAGr? No, they don't. And they certainly don't have a standalone analytics COMPANY that other organizations rely upon.
It's not remotely the same.
I never said it was the same. They have a FO guy Tyseer Siam who is in charge of football operations and Data Analytics. Point is, every team understands the importance of data in sports. Including the Giants and including the Pats. There are levels to all of this and different ways to apply it. I'm quite certain BB has areas is into data in many areas, but when it comes to play calling, especially offense, what he's looking for is not highest probability shit a computer will spit out --he's looking to for unpredictability which is why he has a night and day different game plan every week. Also has great instincts and feel for the game and physiological element a computer can't help you with. He may make use of data like everyone else, but no way in hell he's deferring to a computer over his instincts like true analytics guys.
And there you have it. You think someone has to defer to a computer over instincts in order to be a "true analytics guy" when that's not true at all. That's just your flawed perception.
Analytics help you determine if your instincts have a strong probability of success. They help you determine if what you witnessed was an outlier scenario or part of a trend. They help you see how a tiny little data point relates to a larger aggregated data set. They do not replace instincts.
Someone like Belichick is basically a savant when it comes to football, and I'm comfortable assuming that most of his instincts are probably consistent with the correct probability. And to the extent that he's the coach of the most successful team over the past 20 years, he has firsthand knowledge of much of the data because he has witnessed it and created it. He's crunching that data in his head in real time even if he's not using a calculator on the sidelines to do it. But that doesn't mean he's anti-analytics, no matter what he tells the media.
Not sure if such a communicating style or situation exists here at all . And if not - why not.
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I never said it was the same. They have a FO guy Tyseer Siam who is in charge of football operations and Data Analytics. Point is, every team understands the importance of data in sports.
The Giants are utilizing analytics and they have Siam in charge of it, but a lot of posters overlook that or dismiss it and instead latch onto Gettleman's quote about analytics and they extrapolate out that the team is doing little.
Heck, we've even had discussions about how looking at Siam's LinkedIn profile actually has been used against him as being capable.
The Giants put an importance on data and shurmur, in game, has actually been using game theory decisions quite frequently. But we are losing, people are frustrated and instead use the losing to confirm that analytics aren't used properly.
The rub is that analytics is all about amassing data and mining it to make the best decisions. The results of analytics won't be seen until many years down the road.
You might not find it useful and mock it, but Frank Reich's use of Analysts for real time decision making isn't something going on in this outfit. Those two savants have a direct line into Reich's headset and offer suggestions during key moments in a game. Reich can accept or reject the suggestion, but it gives him another layer to consider.
That seems fairly easy to implement. And highly useful. Why wouldn't we mirror that?
1) Assume that the Giants aren't doing these things, and haven't evaluated such ideas
2)That things like this that other teams are utilizing are always a positive
There are posts about Indy's use of the guys in the booth weekly. And the assumption behind it is that Indy is ahead of the curve while the giants are behind it and have no plan to try and improve.
Wouldn't you be able to ask the same question you did above to the fan base of every other team?
But the people in those meetings aren't the real movers and shakers.
The real ones have their own process or way of doing things and probably would not bother with those meetings.
So it's certainly fine to 'update' but bottom line is what red said. The right people.
Now, there was no way that he was simply collecting and quantifying all that data to simply trust his eyes from what he saw on the video. He was looking for tendencies and insights into opponent strengths and weaknesses.
And what I've read is how they've got the software compiling all that information for him now, and even more.
Of course, all teams have access to that data now. The question is to what degree are they able to take that data and use it to their advantage.
No question that BB is the very best in the biz at this.
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I never said it was the same. They have a FO guy Tyseer Siam who is in charge of football operations and Data Analytics. Point is, every team understands the importance of data in sports.
The Giants are utilizing analytics and they have Siam in charge of it, but a lot of posters overlook that or dismiss it and instead latch onto Gettleman's quote about analytics and they extrapolate out that the team is doing little.
Heck, we've even had discussions about how looking at Siam's LinkedIn profile actually has been used against him as being capable.
The Giants put an importance on data and shurmur, in game, has actually been using game theory decisions quite frequently. But we are losing, people are frustrated and instead use the losing to confirm that analytics aren't used properly.
The rub is that analytics is all about amassing data and mining it to make the best decisions. The results of analytics won't be seen until many years down the road.
Is this your opinion or insider info on how the Giants are utilizing analytics/game theory, etc?
I think it's a fair assessment to say that if the Giants are using analytics, which i assume they are, they aren't utilizing them properly.
I do think there is enough data out there already to help determine in-game management strategy regarding win/loss probabilities based on certain situations.
The implementation of that is uneven and that is on Shurmur and it certainly feels like he only utilizes the data about when he's forced to.
We certainly don't know how they are using the data, maybe you do, but it certainly looks uneven.
My example of how it feels like Shurmur is using the data is like this: assume a guy has a 12% chance of getting a base hit against the shift, and the first time you utilize the shift, he gets a base hit, and because of that you completely abandon the shift or use it intermittently.
The numbers will only bear out if you utilize it all the time other than getting lucky.
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I never said it was the same. They have a FO guy Tyseer Siam who is in charge of football operations and Data Analytics. Point is, every team understands the importance of data in sports.
The Giants are utilizing analytics and they have Siam in charge of it, but a lot of posters overlook that or dismiss it and instead latch onto Gettleman's quote about analytics and they extrapolate out that the team is doing little.
Heck, we've even had discussions about how looking at Siam's LinkedIn profile actually has been used against him as being capable.
The Giants put an importance on data and shurmur, in game, has actually been using game theory decisions quite frequently. But we are losing, people are frustrated and instead use the losing to confirm that analytics aren't used properly.
The rub is that analytics is all about amassing data and mining it to make the best decisions. The results of analytics won't be seen until many years down the road.
However, after 10-34 maybe we should up our investment.
We suck again.
Not seeing improvement.
So tired of it, I am going to follow another team for the rest of the year in protest. Won't matter to anyone. Matters to me. It isn't good enough. I don't care who is to blame. It is both my time and money that I invest. I am willing to suffer through some shit. They paid me in 2007 and 2011 with some great memories. I have supported them in the down times because of it. I don't expect a Patriot level of success but it is too much suck for me now. The arrow needs to start pointing up.
I am now siding with the group that believes we need an entire organizational change in structure and philosophy. I hope Tisch means what he says.
Uber mentioned how Pat's change D style, night and day, every game.
Step 1 for that is training the basics:
That, well and players to execute the basics well. That entails great communications as well as experience and method by the whole staff.
That in turn, entails a serious approach to recruiting and hiring coaches at all levels and
that probably reflects directly on management.
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In comment 14703728 UberAlias said:
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In comment 14703592 Gatorade Dunk said:
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In comment 14703577 UberAlias said:
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The analytics guys have a lot of catching up to reach his success.
Sure he's not.
And Kraft Analytics Group is just studying cheese from their offices in Foxboro.
You do realize NYG has analytics group too, right? Is Shurmur a big analytics guy? I’m going by what BB has said himself. He’s been asked these questions directly and stated he goes by what he thinks, not numbers. But think what you want — maybe he’s lying.
An analytics GROUP? As in comparable to what Kraft built in KAGr? No, they don't. And they certainly don't have a standalone analytics COMPANY that other organizations rely upon.
It's not remotely the same.
I never said it was the same. They have a FO guy Tyseer Siam who is in charge of football operations and Data Analytics. Point is, every team understands the importance of data in sports. Including the Giants and including the Pats. There are levels to all of this and different ways to apply it. I'm quite certain BB has areas is into data in many areas, but when it comes to play calling, especially offense, what he's looking for is not highest probability shit a computer will spit out --he's looking to for unpredictability which is why he has a night and day different game plan every week. Also has great instincts and feel for the game and physiological element a computer can't help you with. He may make use of data like everyone else, but no way in hell he's deferring to a computer over his instincts like true analytics guys.
Ty Siam's background is a joke for someone as head of data analytics.
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I never said it was the same. They have a FO guy Tyseer Siam who is in charge of football operations and Data Analytics. Point is, every team understands the importance of data in sports.
The Giants are utilizing analytics and they have Siam in charge of it, but a lot of posters overlook that or dismiss it and instead latch onto Gettleman's quote about analytics and they extrapolate out that the team is doing little.
Heck, we've even had discussions about how looking at Siam's LinkedIn profile actually has been used against him as being capable.
The Giants put an importance on data and shurmur, in game, has actually been using game theory decisions quite frequently. But we are losing, people are frustrated and instead use the losing to confirm that analytics aren't used properly.
The rub is that analytics is all about amassing data and mining it to make the best decisions. The results of analytics won't be seen until many years down the road.
His LinkedIn shows he does not have the background to lead an analytics effort. I can't believe this is still an argument.
Siam has a consulting background and does not have code on GitHub.
Saying Siam is leading the analytics effort sends off alarm bells. It's a joke.
1) Assume that the Giants aren't doing these things, and haven't evaluated such ideas
2)That things like this that other teams are utilizing are always a positive
There are posts about Indy's use of the guys in the booth weekly. And the assumption behind it is that Indy is ahead of the curve while the giants are behind it and have no plan to try and improve.
Wouldn't you be able to ask the same question you did above to the fan base of every other team?
Yes, I am assuming, and feel very confident, the Giants aren't doing something similar. With some of these ingame blunders we see from Shurmur, it's got to be a safe assumption. However, I'll stand corrected if there is proof otherwise.
As for #2, how can deploying something like this not be a positive? What the hell is the downside? Basically no assembly really required other than a few seats in the coaches box and an extra set of headphones.
And I don't care if other teams are using this concept or not. It sounds smart and easy; so we should mirror it...
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in the discussion of analytics is nobody wants to look at nuance:
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I never said it was the same. They have a FO guy Tyseer Siam who is in charge of football operations and Data Analytics. Point is, every team understands the importance of data in sports.
The Giants are utilizing analytics and they have Siam in charge of it, but a lot of posters overlook that or dismiss it and instead latch onto Gettleman's quote about analytics and they extrapolate out that the team is doing little.
Heck, we've even had discussions about how looking at Siam's LinkedIn profile actually has been used against him as being capable.
The Giants put an importance on data and shurmur, in game, has actually been using game theory decisions quite frequently. But we are losing, people are frustrated and instead use the losing to confirm that analytics aren't used properly.
The rub is that analytics is all about amassing data and mining it to make the best decisions. The results of analytics won't be seen until many years down the road.
His LinkedIn shows he does not have the background to lead an analytics effort. I can't believe this is still an argument.
I thought I already blew this idea up that Ty Siam was some kind of whiz in analytics. His background is in Hospital Administration. He went to an Ivy league school, so I am sure the guy is smart. But, neither he, nor anybody on the Giants has left any kind of footprint in the industry, anything to suggest that they are anything more than Mom and Pop.
There are footprints, of numerous individuals and teams that are easily found if you know what to look for. THe Giants, last time I checked... Nothing.
When I detailed all these arguments for you FMiC, you said I made a compelling case. Those were your words, now you want to go back and twist the nature of the conversation. As usual, all you do is throw up smoke and bluster. Your argument about us not knowing what the Giants are doing is just more of the same. It's as if they read a few articles off the internet and are flailing about rather than having a real methodical approach. If they had a methodical approach, the evidence would be there in the decisions, and footprints that could be found.
I mean, ok, the team is considering some things by just even reading some articles... But the approach is really so much more.
Also, you are sort of right about one ting. Analytics need to evolve. You have to test tons of ideas that fail to find just a few that work. Then you have to build off those. If you are way behind the curve and make suddenly try a wild attempt at it, you are likely to fail. Then when you fail, you get a confirmation bias that all this stuff is just BS anyway, and you stay behind the curve. So while footprints should emerge fairly quickly, real sustained results will take years.
Nobody's blustering will change that fact.
And ogletree shrugged as if to say "hehe I'll take the money".
It sounds like from what you guys are saying it's the same in the front office?
Like, a get right team in more ways than one?
What I've pointed out a number of times is that without knowing what skills the guy possesses, some of you have made up your minds that he isn't fit to lead an analytics department.
Without first hand knowledge of the man, you've made sweeping comments about his aptitude.
And I can't believe this is still being used as evidence that the guy is unfit:
What I've pointed out a number of times is that without knowing what skills the guy possesses, some of you have made up your minds that he isn't fit to lead an analytics department.
Without first hand knowledge of the man, you've made sweeping comments about his aptitude.
And I can't believe this is still being used as evidence that the guy is unfit:
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His LinkedIn shows he does not have the background to lead an analytics effort. I can't believe this is still an argument.
Where did I ever say anything about his LinkedIn? His resume is there and it looks wholly insufficient, but as you well know I have other resources to look at to see if there is anything there.
It's a ludicrous argument. I don't think you know what you're supposed to be looking for here, Fatman.
It's a ludicrous argument. I don't think you know what you're supposed to be looking for here, Fatman.
People may not realize it through all his bluster, but that last comment is applies much more broadly than just to this issue.
You might want to use better vocabulary there, Ace.
What I've pointed out a number of times is that without knowing what skills the guy possesses, some of you have made up your minds that he isn't fit to lead an analytics department.
Without first hand knowledge of the man, you've made sweeping comments about his aptitude.
And I can't believe this is still being used as evidence that the guy is unfit:
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His LinkedIn shows he does not have the background to lead an analytics effort. I can't believe this is still an argument.
I don't think it's crazy for people who work in any analytics-related field to look at Siam's background and his LinkedIn (to the extent that LinkedIn functions as a de facto resume) and be able to say whether they would ever consider that candidate for a role that entails not just heading up an analytics operation, but in many ways, building one from what is likely a state of infancy.
You're right that we don't know what Siam's aptitude is, but we do know his experience and digital footprint, both of which do appear a bit light for what should be a senior role if the organization is truly serious about making analytics a priority in their go-forward strat process.
They'd hardly be the first corporation to hire a consultant with a lack of specific experience or expertise into a full-time specialized role on the basis of a fancy Keynote deck.
Or the shurm being "an adult" .
"Good in the room" Tanney.
And comments about "comfort"and "our people" in hiring generally .
WTF
But players get fired up by the Alonzo Russel's and Laulettas of the world. Scrappy nobodies who just might make it if they stay on track. You need a few characters . A few crazies. A few fuglies. As long as they want to win and are crazy but not in that "me first" way.
You're right that we don't know what Siam's aptitude is, but we do know his experience and digital footprint, both of which do appear a bit light for what should be a senior role if the organization is truly serious about making analytics a priority in their go-forward strat process.
If we hired a guy like Ernie Adams to run our analytics department based on the resume he began that position with in NE, the guys trashing Siam would have a field day with Adams. The larger problem is that outside of christian and yourself, the main guys posting about analytics have shown repeatably that they aren't the experts they claim to be as they have a great number of posts highlighting their ignorance on the subject. Posts are filled with basic thinking flaws like assuming apples and oranges have equal characteristics, or assigning the same weight to an ill-defined stab at a psychometric and claiming opinion-based leaps to get to a conclusion. That's a break in logic.
The bottom line is that you have posters that are claiming to know how qualified Siam is without knowing much about him. and then assuming that because his background doesn't fit their ideal candidate to lead analytics that he's not doing a good job and is incapable of doing a good job. That's just a wrong thing to do.
Players get fired up by Alonzo Russell and Kyle Lauletta?? WTF?
In other words, evidence that someone MAY be using analytical, data-based processes to make decisions can be difficult to interpret. Sometimes the decision seems logical to us, but at other times, it goes against our own logic. We should most likely expect that, no?
The only thing we know so far is that whatever analytics used by the Giants so far has yielded poor results in terms of wins and losses.
One way that their use of analytics appear to have solved a problem is with player health. The team really seems to have turned a corner in regards to injuries. The lone exception seems to be concussions now. There is very interesting information out there on how the Giants use data to drive decisions regarding player's health and how it has improved results.
No one knows precisely what goes on in the Giants headquarters. But the comparison to other organization hires is simple and can be done without any real expertise, and is why the CV comparison is useful. Saying 'we don't know' is not good enough when we can pull up code from people other organizations have hired and can have an idea of what they've worked on. I don't think this specific aspect is as much of a black box as you'd think.
And part of the reason I'm so critical of the Giants (and I honestly don't mean to pick on Siam) is that the Rangers gave someone a token analytics title who did not seem qualified about five years ago and immediately made a bunch of decisions that the analytics at the time suggested were bad. I used to know the important hockey analytics back then and saw the mistakes. And the Rangers were a very well-run organization at the time, just coming off a SCF appearance.
I'm seeing the same stuff here. I do not know the NFL well enough (and certainly not the analytics). But I do see poor decision making when it comes to asset allocation (Ogletree/Williams trade) and aging curves (Solder) that has me very concerned.
There's evidence the Giants have adhered to some analytics - fourth-down decision making, going for two. But really, that's kids stuff for what's possible.
1) Having worked with and through tone of "educated" analytics whiz kids...above a certain point, educational background has almost no bearing on aptitude in this field. Creativity and logic are not remotely the same as knowing math.
The biggest problem whiz kids in one industry have is assuming the same applies in another. Years of stupid follow. Try using most finance PhD's in math in Biomedical. Bad idea.
2) The most important skill set is not the model..its vetting which data is weak and does not apply or has to be augmented. Its pruning the data and the model not the complexity of the model.
3) Curating the data is the key. The vast majority of outputs is unusable in an actionable time frame or an unanalyzable construct interferes with the usually valid.
The biggest interference in interpreting a physical sport is degree of injury and motivation of the individual and the small unit motivation...not factors which lend themselves to statistics
This is also true at the edges of a data set. So for example, the CB who has one capability at the 99.5% offsets so much that average interpretations of his profile is
3) In any given industry one uses 1/20 to 1/10 of the math and CS one accumulated
4) Which math methods are in vogue in a given industry changes rapidly as prior efforts rapidly render the cutting edge into different edges
5) The most sophisticated analytic organizations now prize Philosophy PhD's because they have the best training in assuming nothing but knowing how to ask the right questions. Truth.
6) In most Industries, when you are at the bottom of the talent pool and have many operational process problems...analytics does not help you much.
When you have the fundamentals in place...then analytics can take you to the next level.
7) For example, there was a time when Vince Lombardi had the analytical insight that the next way to get and edge was to build a system based on 7 plays. But to be so good at every inch of execution that it did not matter. So he scouted and searched for guys who excelled at his seven plays at every position. Period, The rest did not matter much to him.
Now back then, most players played the 4th Q in what we would call a concussion protocol in these days. They also played in the old Lambeau Field. Which meant the open seating and no barrier around the field or stadium meant that air from the artic had no obstacle higher than a 5 ft tree as it blew off the Lake.
His players said that as long as someone on the OL heard the play through their concussions, they could play perfectly as a unit.
That was Lombardi's analysis of what his situation was and how to win.
In the Ice Bowl the much more talented Cowboys beat the daylights out of the smaller, older GB offense. The OL got hit with frozen plaster casts around the DL arms and hit a frozen ground 50 plus plays. Except for the last drive of the 4th Q. Based on the situation, Lombardi cut the playbook to 5 plays. Kramer and Thurston and Gregg all had massive headaches, eyesight was shot, hearing was in and out. They repeated the play call to themselves non stop so they would not forget it.
They drove the length of the field on years of muscle memory of a system based on analytical insight as to what wins.
Now that's long ago. But it is very useful information to anyone analyzing football.
The whole point is to find advantage and consistently execute under time and pressure.
Jerry Rice practiced endlessly to run the exact same footsteps every route every quarter and every game. You could shut him down for 3qs. The CB was the one who was eventually a step slower. Meanwhile Montana could throw blind to him because he was always in a predictable place
My point is that analytics is fascinating but NYG fans are barking up the wrong tree concentrating on this subject as if it is a symbol of what has to be fixed first.
And quite frankly, the metrics/analytics needed in effective a Hospital Administration are very important and fairly sophisticated.
It would be one of the fields I would look at. If the guy came from a top flight Hospital Admin grad program he might easily be able to blow away a "analytics" guy in finance. Sorry. that's been true for a long time. Just ask McKinsey or Bain or Pepsi Market Research.
Like many a topic on BBI this one thrives because no one can prove a thing and people can make points that are semi valid but not capture real value.
Watch now. Guys will make arguments that prove that exaggeration and not listening leaves them in the land of polemics not thought.
Torturing the data into confessing your chosen conclusion is not analytics. Or good thinking
Think about it before you post.
Analyzing a health care diagnosis to prognosis to treatment protocol corelations and variations to discern the most important correlations and propose alternative treatment paths for the variations in the humans under treatment?
You are seriously going to make the case that expertise is laughable?
Seriously? What problems drove the construction of complex neural networks? Advanced non linear correlation methods?
Continuous Multi-variate analysis systems. Monitoring systems and the alarming systems. Bio Signal Analysis?
QC systems in a hospital setting is more advanced than most QC in other industries and more urgent and time sensitive.
Lot of arrogant weak sauce on this thread
I pointed out his LinkedIn.
BrettNYG10 : 12/5/2019 11:06 pm : link : reply
Stack his CV up against other people within other organizations. The Ravens hired a bunch of people with better backgrounds/coding experience for leading an analytics efforts.
It's a ludicrous argument. I don't think you know what you're supposed to be looking for here, Fatman.
The Github commits are very much relevant in this field. Does that mean that someone without them is necessarily inexperienced or bad at what they do? No.
But as someone who hires data scientists and employs a team of them - it's usually a big predictor of the candidate's future success. More often than not, the lack of a Github presence points toward inexperience.
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I pointed out his LinkedIn.
BrettNYG10 : 12/5/2019 11:06 pm : link : reply
Stack his CV up against other people within other organizations. The Ravens hired a bunch of people with better backgrounds/coding experience for leading an analytics efforts.
It's a ludicrous argument. I don't think you know what you're supposed to be looking for here, Fatman.
The Github commits are very much relevant in this field. Does that mean that someone without them is necessarily inexperienced or bad at what they do? No.
But as someone who hires data scientists and employs a team of them - it's usually a big predictor of the candidate's future success. More often than not, the lack of a Github presence points toward inexperience.
I'm in DoD and know some excellent data scientists - would doing classified work hurt someone's GitHub presence?
Think about it before you post.
Analyzing a health care diagnosis to prognosis to treatment protocol corelations and variations to discern the most important correlations and propose alternative treatment paths for the variations in the humans under treatment?
You are seriously going to make the case that expertise is laughable?
Seriously? What problems drove the construction of complex neural networks? Advanced non linear correlation methods?
Continuous Multi-variate analysis systems. Monitoring systems and the alarming systems. Bio Signal Analysis?
QC systems in a hospital setting is more advanced than most QC in other industries and more urgent and time sensitive.
Lot of arrogant weak sauce on this thread
Bill,
I think you make some excellent points, and your comparison of hospital admin to applied football analytics is an interesting one - I hadn't considered the underlying similarities that power both.
That said, I still stand by my opinion that Siam's background is somewhat light to be the lead of an NFL analytics department (and to our knowledge, possibly the sole data analyst in the organization). If the Giants had an established data science team and identified Siam as a rising star that they could utilize in a new way by bringing him aboard, I would applaud that. But there should still be someone above him for whom this data science is not a translation of another industry's analytics.
So - and this is 100% my own dumb gut feeling - I can't help but feel as though the Giants decided to make at least a nominal effort to apply analytics to their strat operations, but in lieu of an exhaustive search within the industry, landed on the Deloitte consultant who was already in the building doing work for them in some other scope (or, quite likely, the initial player health analysis that you're correct in pointing out is bearing fruit). I want to be clear that I'm not basing that on anything of substance - it's a wild ass guess from someone who isn't qualified to offer anything more than that.
That, to me, doesn't mean that Siam is bad at his job, though I'd argue that if he is the only data analyst in the organization, they're not committing the proper resources to the initiative. What it does signal to me (again, based only on my own read of it and biased from concerns that surround the franchise's actions across all functions) is that the Giants continue to miss opportunities to cast wider nets. We see it and criticize it (perhaps to a fault) that they only fish in their own pond when they look at coaches and football operations executives - would it be a surprise if we were to find out that the same flawed process exists throughout the franchise in general?
A few points I'd raise.
1. Is there evidence Siam was involved in the processes you described? I pulled up a paper he contributed to and it did not seem that that type of work was in there (although, encouragingly, it looked like more database management was involved than I anticipated).
2. The lack of support. A leader - Gettleman, Belichick, Siam, whoever - does not need to know the complex coding involved. But he does need to know how to hire people to do so and ask the correct questions. I have zero clue about many of the things you listed in your 10:19 AM, but I could pull up a bunch of work in those areas and see the background of people leading those efforts. It is much different than Siam's. I've pointed to the hires of the Ravens and Patriots as examples of franchises adding the appropriate people.
If there were additional hires under Siam being made with the expertise needed, my criticisms would be muted.
3. I don't agree with your characterization of arrogance by the critics (this point, is of course, self-serving). I see many people looking at imperfect information and raising significant concerns based on it. The pushback (from others) that 'we don't know enough' is not, in my view, a serious opinion. I saw a lot of people saying we don't know what's going on inside the organization when these discussions initially began, and it led me to think they had information suggesting there was a robust operation going on. It doesn't seem to be the case.
No one has claimed to know the Giants perfectly, although it seems like others here have industry connections that lead them to their conclusions. I don't have any connections, of course, nor the deep industry expertise others have.
4. I think, to your point, the guy the Steelers hired years ago also had a PhD in Philosophy.
I would love to be wrong on all my criticisms, of course. I see recent failures as an opportunity to revamp processes in the organization.
jcn, my criticism ratcheted up when I looked at the guys the Ravens hired and saw the code they had up there and their interactions with data scientists within the NFL. I have a code on GitHub - the bar is extraordinarily low.
I'm in DoD and know some excellent data scientists - would doing classified work hurt someone's GitHub presence?
Yes - I started off out of college as a consultant for a DARPA project. The inability to put specifics on my CV did set back my marketability as well.
The thing to remember is - that's for work related projects. Most data scientists do side work as well - so if you're writing code as part of a Kaggle competition, you might want to make your code publicly available as a marketing tool.
I've posted many times before, maybe they have an agency or consultants helping. If they do it's tightest lipped group in the industry.
Football is quite literally one of the sexier problems to solve right now in the industry. It's a shame the Giants don't have the biggest team in the league, they have access to an amazing talent pool.
The Giants should be dumping money in R&D, collecting and burning through as much data and as many approaches as they can, and be the first to crack a bunch of the problems still out their to solve.
I've posted many times before, maybe they have an agency or consultants helping. If they do it's tightest lipped group in the industry.
Football is quite literally one of the sexier problems to solve right now in the industry. It's a shame the Giants don't have the biggest team in the league, they have access to an amazing talent pool.
The Giants should be dumping money in R&D, collecting and burning through as much data and as many approaches as they can, and be the first to crack a bunch of the problems still out their to solve.
This part of it kills me - I have to hire in secondary locations due to the expense of headcount in NYC. When I post a job outside of NYC, I get a handful of applicants.
When I post the same req inside of NYC - I get dozens of highly qualified individuals chomping at the bit.
If I were the Giants, I'd have sponsored some competitions just to solicit some feedback. Shit, they could probably give away a few tickets and get some free analytic support. It might be worth what you paid for it, or it might be valuable.
To me, it feels like the braintrust believes there should be a "Giants way" that is impermeable to outside logic.
I liked your posts.
I do not claim to know what is going on inside the NYG.
But I would not conclude that the key is what Siam's backgound is. I would not start there at all.
As you know well analyzing the shit out of things doesn't mean its used or actionable. IMO, the key is a leader who asks the right questions and USES it
My second point is that an analytical mind in charge ( Lombardi sought a systemic replicable solution to his competitive dynamics and that sometimes that's simple not exotic) is the breakthrough.
The more complex the more each assumption not questioned makes the sophistication a trap. Witness the phD's in Math from Ivy League schools I was recruiting only to lose them to Goldman and Long Term Capital Management. Look how their models turned out. All most took out the country but then years of political contributions put non analytical heads inside the solution rooms ( Paulson)
I would train my firepower on Siam. For three reasons:
1) Education don't mean shit for models are about the questions and not the methods. Example: There are 32 patents for conducting a supply re order forecast. Each one works better depending on the characteristics of your data pattern and what the competitor is doing.
2)Its a very published field and easy to copy the international data bases of methods. Always have guys still in a good grad school on the payroll and you don't need to pay to stay very cutting edge its on the University systems
3) Health Care and Hospital Administration contains some very relevant parallels
4) Compiling other sources ( again the word curate) into usable insights and editing out the exotic but BBGOTFSO ( Big Blinding Glimpses of the Fucking So What) is actual data science power.
Oddly, since the goal is competitive edge in this field id sort through consultants to rather than take the time to build a proprietary system ..since the core advantage is not the method to generate insights but a leader asking the right questions using them in real time. Chiefs of Staff are powerful for they sort and prioritize. Siam does need to be up to speed on methods...just a critical thinker on a critical thinking team. We have no idea
5) Guys...Im pretty convinced that many aspects of football does not lend itself to tons of math based analytical advantage ( too many free floating variables, too many non metric psychometrics and too many small sample sizes of exactly parallel situations) and too little time to get them executed well in an actual game.
Notice for example, that BB had the time it takes to close the dome after the Star Spangled Banner calculated so he could decide what side of the field he wanted in the first half. That's not a model. That's a guy who is analytical asking questions in order to differentiate...and a guy with a stop watch answering them.
Lastly, Cashman was committed to moving towards analytics over 13 years ago. Its getting people in place at every stage of the organization that was the factor in the now accepted idea that the Yankees embrace analytics ( in a far far easier sport to analyze). That's from Cashman...its not my observation.
IF it was me, Id want the analytics guy reporting to Mara so he can second guess and QC the crap he was fed by Reese/Ross/McAdoo and maybe this crowd as well. Mara has to start my asking the right questions so they do as well.
I don't think we want to be first in analytics ( im in favor in many endeavors but skeptical in football beyond some obvious applications). I think we want an organization that is first in Rigor.
Rigorous questions at every level are the differentiator. Not the techniques that maybe the latest.
imo
Why is speed and scope so important? If you are going to go for a 4th and 1 the most important data is not all the other teams that have gone for it on 4th and 1. It's the last few plays and the direction of the physics interactions being produced by the players and how those alter the base probabilities of that history. Then simulating those expected points with various courses of action. Yes these numbers are hard to calculate but there are teams that absolutely do this and we are playing checkers at best in as some have pointed out one of the best talent areas in the world.
But the most irritating part? This is all a red herring. I'll admit to pushing a lot of this analytics talk but I also saw the writing on the wall. GoTerps shared the DG thread when DG was hired i've consistently fully acknowledged that I thought DG was a very smart personnel guy but I didn't think that wasn enough anymore and we had to commit to innovation. Now things got much worse and we look even more over-matched and there is a continued effort to downplay it. Hard to quantify how much this helps? Absolutely. But why given that we can all acknowledge that DG has such a good eye for talent are we here? Because just having an eye for talent isn't good enough anymore. Just having a good approach and consulting background isn't enough anymore. It was for a long time. The time this first hit a boiling point for a lot of us was Saints game last year when we sat on 3 timeouts while they killed the clock in a goal to go situation before the half. Maybe that wouldn't boil the blood of a consultant but it would anyone who understands math and game theory. And since then more and more teams are moving towards putting that understanding in the hands or ears of team leaders in game.
One thing I always loved about the field of finance was that your background doesn't matter if you perform. But all this how do you know what they are doing or acting like the people questioning these things are making the leap no, i'm sorry, that doesn't make sense. The leap is to suggest that the Giants didn't completely blow their opportunity to get ahead on innovation when the on field product is so bad and a team is devoid of code or qualifications to build the kinds of systems that are working for other teams. The only question is how long until we catch up. And that will take a more and more significant investment with each passing day.