For several years now, analytics have been heralded as the next emerging trend in football from the NFL to high school.
You can see analytics being used during in-game broadcasts, by analysts from ESPN to the NFL Network when breaking down game footage highlighting areas like player speed during games, and there's no shortage of clips from coaches being asked about controversial calls after games and pointing to "analytics" as the reason behind their decision.
It's worth mentioning that analytics is a rather broad term in the football world, and that is reflected in how NFL teams not only staff their analytics departments, but also in their official titles that are listed.
Thanks to some research by Seth Walder, who poured over the staff lists of each NFL team, we now have an idea of which organizations are investing in their analytics department.
On average, each team lists about 5 staffers with analytics responsibilities, according to our math. Many teams hover right around the 4-6 range.
Leading the way with 10 staffers dedicated in some way, shape, or form to analytics is the Browns, who went an impressive 11-6 last season.
Paul DePodesta, a former baseball executive, is their chief strategy officer with three VPs working with him (Ken Kovash, Andrew Healy and Dave Giuliani).
The Browns, also employ director in scouting research as well as a league-leading four football research analysts.
Only two teams - the Vikings and Eagles - feature guys with GM titles working in analytics.
The Vikings have GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, who was renowned across the NFL for his analytics work prior to landing his current role listed and the Eagles have assistant GM Alec Halaby listed.
Teams that seem to be investing the least in analytics?
Just two NFL teams list one staffer in regards to analytics - the Patriots (Richard Miller is director of research), and Bucs (Jacqueline Davidson is VP of football research). Seems safe to assume they have a team working under them, but based on the information gathered, just one individual is listed.
Meanwhile, the Cardinals, Saints, Steelers, Bengals and Rams have just two staffers each assigned to analytics roles.Bo
How about the back-to-back Super Bowl champion Chiefs?
Andy Reid's squad lists just three staffers in analytics role that range from statistical analysis coordinator (Michael Frazier) to Ryan Herman (senior football strategy and compliance advisor) to Marc Richards (football research analyst).
The Chief's dominance the past two seasons proves that you can still win big without double-digit staffers dedicated to analytics - or maybe that's just be a tip of the cap to the type of coaching talent and play caller that Andy Reid is.
See a full list below.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop.


Updated NFL analytics staffer list!
โ Seth Walder (@SethWalder) August 26, 2024
As always, this is to the best of my understanding based on both what teams list and conversations with analytics folks around the league. pic.twitter.com/w7ImnTwa3T