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The Bills Have Hired a Director of Analytics


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As a result, Sproles was held to almost nothing, which, in turn, caused me to lose in fantasy football. Analytics at work!

ha ha!

 

Only the Bills would hire a "Western New York native with twenty years of experience at Xerox." Real franchises hire people from top consulting firms, like Bain, B.C.G., and McKinsey, or top accounting firms like Deloitte/KPMG. Russ Brandon is a joke.

 

Look: Lyons is an o.k. hire, with solid experience, but I don't expect the team to hire the right people under him. Expect Russ to instruct him to hire Syracuse and U.B. grads, rather than the former associate consultants hired by most N.F.L. firms.

 

Do you have any idea what you're talking about? Xerox generated $22 billion in revenue in 2011 and McKinsey $7 billion.

Edited by dave mcbride
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ha ha!

 

 

 

Do you have any idea what you're talking about? Xerox generated $22 billion in revenue in 2011 and McKinsey $7 billion.

 

You're using revenue as a metric? You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. McKinsey is a management consulting firm which is a huge feeder for football franchises.

 

The vast majority of Xerox's revenue comes from processing services, IT outsourcing, document management and, yes, printers. Its consultancy is second-rate; as an IT consultancy, it is far behind firms like Accenture, Booz, and Deloitte.

 

I know some people in the Cleveland Browns front office- another rust belt city- and they hire directly from firms like Bain- a legitimate top consultancy- or economics departments from places like UChicago.

 

This is a second-rate hire. Why are you defending it?

Edited by ny33
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I assume it is breaking down things like field position as it relates to punts or going for it on 4th. How much field position do you get or lose if you go for it? How many possessions per game, another teams propensity to run or pass in a situation, do you get an extra possession if you defer or take the ball to start.

 

Frankly its a job I would love

 

I've noticed this too. You can bet guys like Belicheat and Peyton and John Fox are all aware of these types of percentages

"Stats are for losers."

- Bill Belichick

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As much as analytics is about in-game decisions, it's more geared toward personnel and building a team. The odds one guy like Buddy Nix making enough good draft picks a la the 1980s-1990s are not high in 2013. The Bills know this, "retired" Nix, and promoted what we can only hope is a more forward looking GM who'll embrace statistical analysis in personnel evaluation.

 

The only exception to this rule is when you've got a Ted Thompson or Jerry Reese as your GM and even then I'll bet they augment their opinions with analytical research.

Edited by BillsVet
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You're using revenue as a metric? You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. McKinsey is a management consulting firm which is a huge feeder for football franchises.

 

The vast majority of Xerox's revenue comes from processing services, IT outsourcing, document management and, yes, printers. Its consultancy is second-rate; as an IT consultancy, it is far behind firms like Accenture, Booz, and Deloitte.

 

I know some people in the Cleveland Browns front office- another rust belt city- and they hire directly from firms like Bain- a legitimate top consultancy- or economics departments from places like UChicago.

 

This is a second-rate hire. Why are you defending it?

 

do you actually have any insight into the individual hired, beyond working at xerox?

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Analytics, shamalytics. Are you telling me a tapehead from a company that has done so poorly is going

 

to make the Bills a better football team. Give me a break; there are better football minds on this board

 

than a computer guy who may not know the difference between the NFL, NBA, and NHL. He may be able

 

but could have have fixed any of the last 13 years.

 

Excuse the last post, the last sentence should

read

 

He may be able to fix Obamacare but could he have fixed any of the last 13 years.

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do you actually have any insight into the individual hired, beyond working at xerox?

 

He's an electrical engineer by training with an M.B.A. Those are pluses. Lyons' role at Xerox was a, per the below link, "data analytics expert responsible for analyzing raw data and transforming it into useful information to create solutions for business."

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/news/2013/10/30/bills-follow-through-on-analytics-hire.html

 

That's the right skill set.

 

My concerns are the fact that a) Brandon is emphasizing the fact that Lyons is a WNY native; the above article mentions how he'll work with a former Syracuse "administrative football assistant," Stephen Brown, who joined the team with Marrone.

 

I'll get flamed for this, but Brandon is clearly engaging in significant cronyism. His hires are in stark contrast to what Jimmy Haslam has done in Cleveland: Haslam is hiring the best people from the best firms. The Browns have a close relationship with Steven Levitt, the UChicago economics professor who wrote "Freakonomics." Levitt has consulted the front office on how to hire for their new, revamped analytics department. This is in stark contrast to Brandon's strategy of hiring qualified- but not the best- people from Syracuse/WNY for the front office.

 

Time will tell which strategy is best.

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Analytics, shamalytics. Are you telling me a tapehead from a company that has done so poorly is going

 

to make the Bills a better football team. Give me a break; there are better football minds on this board

 

than a computer guy who may not know the difference between the NFL, NBA, and NHL. He may be able

 

but could have have fixed any of the last 13 years.

 

Excuse the last post, the last sentence should

read

 

He may be able to fix Obamacare but could he have fixed any of the last 13 years.

We don't need no egghead college boy calling plays with his fancy calculators. I don't care if he can program a VCR to beat a Chinaman at chess, football is a man's game and ain't no computers gonna tell me what to do cause of some BS numbers.

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The Bills game plans are going to be nicely bound in to high quality presentation packs by our Xerox man. But wait presentation packs are no more as all the Bills players have iPads. No wonder Xerox man is looking for an alternative career.

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You can get all the statistics on any player you want, but a computer can not tell you a players heart, can not tell

 

you all the intangibles that make winning players out of losers.

 

Can a computer tell you who is a leader or a cancer in the locker?

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You can get all the statistics on any player you want, but a computer can not tell you a players heart, can not tell

 

you all the intangibles that make winning players out of losers.

 

Can a computer tell you who is a leader or a cancer in the locker?

Is it the goal of the analytics department to root out locker room cancers and quantify intangibles?

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Is it the goal of the analytics department to root out locker room cancers and quantify intangibles?

 

All that and understand abstract concepts like love.

 

And disregard the people in the department- were busy getting upset about computers and robots and stuff!

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You can get all the statistics on any player you want, but a computer can not tell you a players heart, can not tell

 

you all the intangibles that make winning players out of losers.

 

Can a computer tell you who is a leader or a cancer in the locker?

 

A computer can't tell you anything at all. It is the people using the computers who determine what the data means......the computer simply collates that data.

 

Analytics is the science of logical analysis.

Logical analysis can be, and should be applied to all facets of the organization.

 

Hopefully Mike Lyons will have the wisdom to apply analytic studies to areas where it can help the team.

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This stuff has been happening for years though. We used to get formations and get a percentage breakdown of pass to run.

 

While it's cool nerds get to be involved in sports, but I still think analytics are a bit overrated in football. The Jags have an analytics guy who decided that Blaine Gabbert was a pretty good QB last year. http://espn.go.com/n...s-espn-magazine In a sport where so much is based on emotion and is so physical, numbers only get you so far. But any additional information is good.

 

IMO using analytics to evaluate the ability of players is inherently illogical.

An analytic study on the success/failure of your talent assessment guys is likely the better way to go.

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