WASHINGTON – It’s advice that sounds like heresy on the gridiron: Go for it on fourth down. Try more onside kicks. Running backs don’t matter much.
But to stats geeks, this is the gospel from the spreadsheets.
The number-savvy economists, statisticians and refugees from Wall Street who revolutionized much of baseball in a way celebrated in the book and movie “Moneyball” are aiming their calculators at football.
But so far they aren’t making much headway. The complex team-oriented game is difficult to break down into interchangeable numbers, and the men who run the sport are even tougher to change. If baseball is in the 10th year of adopting “Moneyball” concepts, football is barely in year one, several sports number gurus say.
There is one NFL team that seems to best epitomize an increased amount of number-based decision-making, top sports statisticians agree. And that team, the New England Patriots, will be playing on Super Bowl Sunday for the fifth time in 11 years.
“The Patriots are the `Moneyball’ team of the NFL, no doubt about it,” said Brian Burke, founder of Advanced NFL Stats Inc. “The Patriots are in the Super Bowl because they have this system and stick to it. The Giants are in the
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