Chase Stuart, founder of the site Football Perspective and 2016 panelist at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, joins me to discuss the analytics of the NFL draft. We dissect how he uses Approximate Value to assign a number to each selection in the draft. We also compare this draft chart to the Jimmy Johnson chart and talk about the surprising admission of the Patriots in making the Brandin Cooks trade.
Kevin Cole, data scientist and writer for Roto Viz and Fantasy Labs, joins the show to discuss his predictions for the 2017 NFL Draft. Among other topics, we discuss his unusual path to sports analytics, how to predict running back success, and what small sample size say about Deshaun Watson versus Mitch Trubisky.
John Urschel plays offensive line for the Baltimore Ravens in the fall and works on his Ph.D. in Mathematics at MIT the rest of the year. He joins me for a conversation on football analytics and his math research. Topics include the acoustic operator in those Bose commercials with J.J. Watt, the NFL's progress in video tracking data and the hidden factor in his making the NFL.