New Football Analytics Book and #Vikings Talk with Matthew Coller

Eric Eager (@ericeager_) and the founder of Purple Insider, Matthew Coller (@MatthewColler) discuss his upcoming book, "Football is a Numbers Game".

The guys then talk about the #Vikings and their outlook for the 2023 season, after a popup 13-win season a year ago. link to Matthew's book: Amazon.com: Football Is a Numbers Game: Pro Football Focus and How a Data-Driven Approach Shook Up the Sport: 9781637272183: Coller, Matthew: Books

Get 20% OFF @manscaped + Free Shipping with the promo code SUMER at MANSCAPED.com!

Episode Transcript

(00:37):
Welcome, Happy Friday. Welcome toepisode sixty two of the Summer Sports Show.
I'm Erica. You're one of thenormal hosts of the show. No
Thomas mitch off the day we'll we'llget Thomas back in about ten days or
so. I am joined hello bythe person who we shouted out on the
show before, the person who engineeredthe music to this show, the foul

(01:00):
under a Purple Insider, the authorof a numbers game we'll we'll talk about
a little bit later. Matthew Coller. Matthew, Happy Friday, Happy summer.
It's June seconds. I'm excited forthis. We did this podcast last
week about a half hour. We'regoing to stick to that number today.
But when I said I was gonnago solo today, you message me.

(01:21):
You're like, look, why don'twe just chop it up on this WNBA
Friday. I'm really excited, Sowelcome Matthew. Thanks for having me.
And I'll tell you that because Icould not stand listening to the cold,
open, dead, silence, youbreathing, and then you opening the show,
I was like, let's get yousome music in here, Let's get

(01:41):
you an intro. Let's get going. So I jammed it up, made
a little music, and now Ienjoy listening to myself every time I started
the show. And by the way, I got to say that the show
with you and Thomas is an absolutemust listen for me. I love what
you guys have done with it,the other voices that you bring in.
I'm still listening to the episode withyou and Taje. So now that we
got the music in there for youand you're you're completely rolling as a full

(02:04):
blown podcast host. So I'm veryhappy and very proud of you. Yeah,
my friend Matt Stovsky, he said, you know, you can even
put executive producer on your on yourtitle. I'm not gonna go that far.
I don't really want to go thatfar, but I have learned quite
a bit. And obviously you wereone siren Petro who will have on the
show a little bit later. Itwas also very instrumental in helping me get

(02:27):
get get this thing off the offthe ground and to your point, Thomas,
you know, to add so muchto the show. He's been dealing
with with some things over the past, you know, a few weeks,
but we will get him back soonat least once a week as we approach
the season. Matt, you coverthe Minnesota Vikings, a team near and
dear to my heart, being fromMaplewood, Minnesota. You've covered them since

(02:50):
twenty sixteen. That was actually yourpodcast, which I thought was the Football
Analytics Show, was the first everpodcast ever went on, which is really
cool, and you know, wechopped it up ever since. You moved
on to your own website, PurpleInsider in twenty twenty during the pandemic with
rousing success. And obviously now you'vegotten to a couple of books, one

(03:14):
about the twenty seventeen Minnesota Vikings andthen one about my former company PFF.
It's been a it's been a realinteresting ride, and you've gotten to see
an NFL franchise at various stages ofdevelopment, at various stages of success.
When it comes to covering this team, the Minnesota Vikings. Like what like

(03:36):
in a phrase? What's a phrasethat comes to your mind when you talk
about covering this team? Oh,I don't think you can cover it in
a phrase. I mean because madnesswould be the first place that you would
start that. There's always crazy thingshappening with the Minnesota Vikings, and somehow
they're always in the center of whateveris going on. But I think the
interesting journey for me and covering theVikings was really seeing the Mike Zimmer and

(04:00):
Rick Spielman era as it was peakingfrom the time that Mike Zimmer took over
in twenty fourteen, and that wasa completely rebuilding team. In twenty fourteen,
they draft a quarterback and Teddy Bridgewater, they draft Anthony Barr and then
the twenty fifteen draft happens and itaccelerates their timeline because they drafted multiple Pro

(04:20):
Bowl players in that draft, andby the time I arrived in twenty sixteen,
they have just come off the BlairWalsh missed field goal and the expectations
are extremely, extremely high. Notonly that, but in preseason, Teddy
Bridgewater has looked great. He's lookedlike his arm strength is improving. He's
coming along and everyone, I thinkis setting the bar sky high for that

(04:42):
Vikings team. And when you goback even and look at the NFC in
twenty fifteen, I mean there wasa case to kind of talk about it
almost as we do now, wherelike who's really running away with the NFC?
If the Vikings are even with thePackers and so I think they felt
like it was their chance, andthe moment I arrived to cover the team,
Teddy Bridgewater goes down with his kneeinjury, which changes the entire trajectory

(05:04):
of the team. But they wereso good that they survived a I mean
by talent wise, that they surviveda collapse in twenty sixteen to miss the
playoffs. Twenty seventeen happens. Theyend up in the NFC Championship with case
Keenum, and there is kind ofa moment that really shifts how everyone thought
of that team and why they wentafter Kirk Cousins, because they had this

(05:27):
kind of outlier, crazy season,but they set the bar at getting to
the NFC Championship and beyond, sothey go out, they make the huge
move for Kirk Cousins, and thenever since then, every year has been
the desperate flailing to make that right, and it hasn't been. Last year
is kind of right ish, withthirteen wins but a negative point differential a

(05:49):
loss in the playoffs. But thisis actually the first offseason that I can
really remember. Twenty twenty was sortof this way, but they still made
a ridiculous trade for Yanni Kengakway,and so they were still really going for
it even though they had no businessgoing for it. But this is the
first offseason where we've actually seen themtake a step back approach where they moved
on from Kendricks feeling Dalvin Cook isstill we're kind of waiting on that we

(06:13):
might get a Friday news dump aswe're talking. Who knows, but the
expectation is still that they're going tomove on from Dalvin Cook and they've really
rebuilt parts of this team, orare trying to rebuild parts of this team
with a lot of draft picks andyoung players, even the way they approach
free agency, signing Marcus Davenport inhis mid twenties, Byron Murphy Junior in
his mid twenties, guys who haddown seasons last year but have shown higher

(06:35):
end before. Both of them havesome good numbers by PF And I think
that we saw Quasi at Afamenza startto kind of take the reins here as
the Vikings GM, and you know, he doesn't like the tag of being
known as the analytics GM, andI understand why, Like I don't know,
I mean, I guess if youwere known in baseball as the analytics
GM, you're like every GM,but there's still in a football where you

(06:58):
gotta like, hey, hey,I'm a football guy, so I get
that. But I think that thisyear, including the draft where we saw
a lot of players with good numbersget picked by quasi Atafamenza, that we
started to see the approach that weexpected when he got here. Last year
was much more of a Spielman typeoffseason where they signed older players, they
pretty much kept all of their piecesand tried to run the whole thing back.

(07:21):
But I think we're finally seeing asea change, and even though it
isn't a drastic, drastic one fromthe outside world, which means you change
your quarterback. So if they hadtraded Kirk for Trey, Lance still could
happen. But if they did thatthen that would have been this tectonic shift.
But I think when you put amicroscope on it, you see a
lot of mini shifts in their approachthat could kind of add up to some

(07:46):
edges in the long term, whichmakes them interesting from a perspective to study
from timeline and kind of where thenumbers play into this. Yeah, for
sure, and we're gonna have someexciting stuff at Sumersports next week. As
far as content is concer earned,we've kind of dipped our toes into content
a little bit. It's funny.I've kind of written a series about team
building. You know where I lookat you know, weak link systems,

(08:07):
and then I look at restructures andvoid years and post June first and draft
proverbs, and it's really funny.Not because you know, my dad's a
Vikings fan. I grew up watchingthe team and all this stuff, and
I but the Vikings in a weirdway have been the character in the proverb

(08:31):
for a lot of these different teambuilding you know things right where you're you
talk about like I think about thinkback to like nineteen ninety eight where they
draft Randy Moss when they didn't needRandy Moss because Jake Reid had a four
one thousand yard receiving the seasons ina row. That was like, obviously
a great thing. Take the bestplayer, bail Well, take a generational
talent. He can change the complexitof your team. Same thing happened in

(08:52):
two thousand and seven when Adrian Petersonwith draft and seventh overall Benchester Taylor,
who had like a thirteen hundred yardseason before they took the best player available.
They built around him, and youknow, running back notwithstanding two thousand
and sevens a little different than itis now. And Dante Calpepper in nineteen
ninety nine when Randald Cunningham had had, you know, a great season,
MVP type season, and you kindof look and they've done a lot of

(09:13):
great things. I actually think aboutwhat quasy Adappa Menz is doing right now.
It kind of reminds me a littlebit of what Brad Schilders did when
he started, where a lot ofsecond contract guys who are good athletes,
have good fundamentals, but aren't youknow, I think at oh seven,
sorry six, Edrin James is available, but Childers signed Chester Taylor instead.

(09:35):
Chester Taylor had a much better careerthereafter, you know, Daniel Graham was
available. They took Vasante Shanko,a guy who had been a backup but
had great fundamentals. And you lookat what you know, to your point,
like they're signing young players second contract, you know, good fundamentals.
I really liked that about them,and you know, it remains to be
seen obviously. Kirk, the KirkCousins situation, I'm actually I wanted to

(09:58):
sort of talk to you about thatat the very end of when we talk
about the Vikings here, because I'mcoming to grips with something which I'm really
sad about with respect that the kirkCousins possible extension here. Um. But
I think about, like all thethings that the Vikings have done to get
them to where they are, andthis is Spielman, you know, previous
regime type stuff, and it almostalways is this thing about chasing the previous

(10:22):
year. Right, So you canwin a super Bowl in the NFL by
being defense first. We've seen ittwo fifteen Broncos. We saw it with
twenty thirteen Seahawks, we thought,and yet I would never try to win
a super Bowl defense first, youknow what I'm saying, Like, there's
always a different approach. You haveto have to win predictively versus Okay,

(10:45):
we're in this situation and this isour best way to win. And I
think that a lot of roster buildingthe edges are in understanding that, and
the failures happen in failing to understandthat, where I always say, like,
you can't win, Yes, lastyear's super Bowl, that's already been
one, and yet when I lookat Minnesota, you know, ninety eight
it was chasing after Randall Cunningham,you know that contract, and chasing after

(11:11):
turnovers. They had like some randomdude Namedjimmy Hitchcock at three interception touchdowns that
year, and then in twenty eighteen, it was we have a great defense,
let's just get a quarterback who canbe a little bit better than Keenum
and all that slack will be madeup and will win a Super Bowl.
And the problem is that your defenseis never you know, in the NFL
currently, like they had the sameeleven starters on defense in Week one of

(11:35):
that season as they did in theNFC title game, like that stuper is
gonna happen, and guys atrophee,guys age out. And the one of
the biggest things I think Minnesota hasstruggled with is they just never understand that
the party's over and it's time.It's time to move on, and they
try to win last year's Super Bowland then that sets them back. And
it's the reason why, like they'realways they have these pop up seasons every

(11:58):
like eight or nine years, andit almost in the Super Bowl, and
then it like they just can't sustainthat. Yeah, I think every year
after they had a great season,like the next season they fell off,
except for eighty seven eighty eight,But you know, you go back to
like two thousand and nine and thenBrett Farve comes back, and like you're
saying, you're trying to sort ofrelive something that's already in the past,
where well, we'll just bring backBrett Farve and everybody else and then the

(12:22):
same thing will happen again and insteadof far throwing an interception across his body,
he's going to win the Super Bowlat that point. And I think
they ended up with six and tenor something, and the twenty seventeen to
like the ripple effect from that isreally interesting, and I think that this
goes for kind of every team thatyou can look at that has some success

(12:43):
but doesn't quite get there and whatthat means. I think that it's I
heard this saying on someone else's podcast, a basketball podcast, about how the
playoffs can have more impact on whatteams think of themselves and what they do
in the future than even with theregular season. A lot of franchises,
if not like way more and thinkabout maybe the Boston Celtics you're within one

(13:05):
game of going to the NBA Finals, But are you gonna now make a
key decision on Jalen Brown or areyou going to fire your coach now because
of the way it happened in theplayoffs. And we even saw that,
I think with Kellen Moore in theNFL, where if Kellen Moore and the
Cowboys don't have two times where theythey're just not good enough against San Francisco
in the playoffs, he's probably stilltheir offensive coordinator if they win one of

(13:28):
those games. And plus it endedon such ridiculous fashion that it's just so
amplified. And this is what happenedto the Vikings in twenty seventeen. They
felt like they got so close thenthey got crushed in the NFC Championship game.
So it's not like you had afield goal just missed for Gary Anderson
or something. In that season.The Eagles were the much better team that

(13:48):
year. But still, when youget to that point, that's where the
bar gets set, and that's whereeverybody is expected to get to the following
season. So they had the ideathat you could run back every body else
and then you just replace Kirk Cousinswith case Keenum. And I think what
they didn't maybe fully factor is thatKirk Cousins is better than case Keenum.

(14:09):
There is no question about it.If you put the two quarterbacks in the
exact same situations in a bubble andplay out one hundred seasons, kirk Cousins
wins more games, has better statistics, everything else. But the two seventeen
season quarterback season by case Keenum wastremendous. It's one of the best in
Vikings team history. And asking kirkCousins to even repeat that with a different

(14:33):
offensive coordinator, Pat Churmer left afterthat year and the approach change. They
wanted to pass first, which MikeZimmer didn't want, and so there was
internal dynamics there. And you mentionedthe defense in twenty eighteen, some guys
got banged up that didn't get hurtbefore. They brought in Sheldon Richardson,
expecting him to make a huge difference, which he did at times, but

(14:54):
it wasn't quite the same as thechemistry that they had had on the defensive
line before. And then opponent matters, schedule matters. We saw this last
year the number of backup quarterbacks thatthey played, so in twenty and eighteen,
they end up missing the playoffs.Their offensive line had some injuries,
and that wasn't the same as itwas in twenty seventeen, and you know,
you end up with this desperation becauseyou never matched what happened in twenty

(15:20):
seventeen every year, and I thinkthat when we from the outside analyzed decisions,
and I know Thomas talks about thisa ton, but you can't overstate
it that expectations and expectations from ownershipand those things they really dictate a lot
of what teams do. So fromagain, in a bubble, a trade
for Chris Herndon for a fourth roundpick might seem like the most absurd thing

(15:43):
that someone could do. But ifyour tight end just got hurt, and
you know that tight end is supposedto be a position that we were really
going to use this year, andwe gotta win and we can't try somebody
else, we gotta go get somebodylike there are moves that get made that
make you ultimately look foolish, butin the bigger picture, you understand why
it was, and it was essentiallyyears of that, and of course when

(16:07):
years of that fail, then youend up with tension and you end up
with clashing between the coach, thegeneral manager. Here's the person who never
wanted Kirk Cousins, here's the personwho did want Kirk Cousins, and the
ownership that wanted him, and soforth. And it's an interesting story because
I think that it kind of explainssometimes when your team makes a move that
is not analytically sound and maybe isn'tthe best contract, and you just go,

(16:30):
I don't really get it. What'smy team doing? Well, there
may be dynamics that go beyond thatthat have to do with expectations and the
team's timeline overall, and pressure onpeople's jobs. For why you're doing some
of these things, Well, youtalk about the playoffs. It's such a
good point, like because I couldlook at it a different way. Kansas
City in two and twenty was thebest team in the NFL by a country

(16:55):
mile. They lose all their offensivelinemen, they lose the Super Bowl.
They overend that on that. Now, it took a few other moves like
Tybree Kiltrey and really drafting and beingthere. Patriots sort of do the same
thing, right, Like they gotclose a few times. They go get
Darryl Rebus, they go get StephanGilmore. They and I think that it's

(17:18):
and this is why it's important,and this is why statistics matter. Now,
Like a lot of people want todismiss statistics in their input impact on
football. But if you are in, if you are if what is fixed
about your team is stable and predictiveof winning, then you can go and
over index about the playoffs because ultimately, Patrick Mahomes is the reason the Chiefs

(17:38):
are in the basin of teams andAndy Reid are in the basin of four
teams every year, you know,Tom Brady, Bill Belichick were the reason
that the and then so you canover index on winning one those two those
games. Right. The issue isis when the reason that you're in the
top four is not a stable thingyear the year, then you over index

(18:03):
on the reason that you're not there. And unfortunately, and this was the
issue with Derek Carr as well,and all these teams were that were that
kind of quarterback away, like whenthe Jets wanted Derek Carr and stuff like
that, It's like, well,the reason the Jets were a compelling team
last year was because their defense wasgreat and stayed healthy and all that stuff
like do you think that that's goingto happen that frequently? And so like

(18:26):
Derek Carr might not make being hemight be enough to win last year's Afcast,
but he's not good enough to winthis year's AFC East when all the
other assumptions are are not there,and so it's really weird. And this
is why you know, Andy Reidand Mahomes have the league by the balls,
because it's like they're in there becauseof what's fundamental to them, and

(18:48):
so after that it's just about it'sabout rearranging the chairs to win that game
or two. For other teams,the reason they're there is a bunch of
noise that's got a ton of degreea freedom, and you really can't,
you know, you really can't stabilizeevery year. And then if you think
that there's you're one thing away,you're probably wrong. And unfortunately that's like

(19:08):
the case for most teams. Nowwhen I look at Minnesota, I did
you know. One of the reasonsI want to do the show today and
one of the reasons having you onis so great is I wanted I did
some project like I'm working on forSumer. I'm working on some of our
internals and the Minnesota its, asyou know, have a have a win

(19:29):
total market of eight and a halfgames. By the way, you know,
when when you think about like,oh, if this team has been
good during the Kirk Cousins are likeno, their win total has been between
eight a half and nine and ahalf games every freaking year. There.
The market paints them as an averageteam. Even after last year's thirteen win
team, they're an eight and ahalf win team. Now over is a
little bit shaded. I believe it'smy one thirty two over Regardless, um,

(19:53):
we assumer make them a seven pointnine win team. We give them
about a thirty nine percent chance tomake the playoffs, which I think is
a little lower than the market.We give them a twenty three percent chance
to win the division, which isa little bit lower the market. That's
plus three hundred or so, that'sright around where they are, and a
one point three percent chance to winthe Super Bowl. We're not as high

(20:17):
on Detroit as the market is,which is weird because I'm the restore of
the row guy, the team thatactually we're fairly high on and the team
so when you look at our wintotals, for the NFC North, we
have Detroit at eight point seven wins, we have green Bay at eight point
two wins, we have Minnesota atseven point nine, and then we have
Chicago at seven point four. Chicago, by the way, that's right on

(20:38):
their market. But I think peopleare a little too high on them,
including US. I actually think GreenBay is that team that is going to
sneak up on people because you havea great coach. In my opinion,
you have a defense that everybody sortof said last year was going to be
really good. That didn't you knowin your sort of a year ahead.
I think about their defense like Ithought about the twenty sixteen Vikings defense,

(21:02):
where everybody's like, this is acaliber team to win the Super Bowl,
and they just were like a littleshort of that. A green Bay felt
quite a bit short of that.But then seventeen was when everything came together.
I think green Bay if you combinegood enough quarterback play, defense where
you've invested a lot young good talent, you have a great head coach,

(21:22):
you have skilled position players that arecoming into their own and frankly like the
relief of kind of getting a guywho didn't want to be on your team
off your team. I think GreenBay is the dark horse in this division.
Yeah, So this is interesting becauseit ties into kind of what we
were talking about with Quacy Deflamensa andhis approach to the offseason, because coming

(21:42):
off of thirteen win season, Ithink there was probably some poll to try
to repeat that and try to keepeverything you had, and so because they've
moved out so many pieces, itactually makes it a little harder to figure
out what it's going to be.For me, the volatility for the Vikings
is a little bit more than itwas last year, where when you have

(22:04):
Patrick Peterson, Eric Kendricks, DelvinTomlinson, Zarius Smith. I mean,
these guys have been around for along time, and that defense was worse
than we thought it was going tobe. But we also knew that bringing
in Shane and Sullivan, running outCam Dancelaer like these were not things that
were likely to result in them havinga great defense, and it ended up
being a little worse than we thought. But the point just being that,

(22:26):
you know, when you have astable offense and you have a lot of
veteran players who can make plays atthe end of games and things like that,
I think that we thought we kindof knew what they were going to
be last year, and then theyexceeded that because a lot of randomness,
a lot of noise, and quasiat afamenta approached the offseason like it was
a lot of noise last year,like they were a nine win team that
needed a refresh, not like athirteen win team that was trying to win

(22:48):
the Super Bowl. But I alsothink that the gap is now widened between
what they could be because on defense, if Brian Flores really clicks with a
lot of these young players that they'vedrafted in recent years, Andrew Bruth Junior,
the Lewis scene, Caleb Evans,these players are gonna start, they're
gonna play, Brian Alsmo is goingto be their starting linebacker, and they

(23:08):
sign Marcus Davenport who has been betweenzero and nine tacks in his career.
So which Marcus Davenport are you gettingis a pretty good question. So I
think that there's this wide gap whereif everything kind of goes wrong and these
draft picks go bust and Davenport doesn'twork out and Floris isn't a good fit,
I mean, you could very wellend up with a seven win football

(23:29):
team. But if everything does goright, and that doesn't even really have
to be everything, it has tobe Floris's system fits and young players make
progress, then you can be anNFC North champion if you're the Vikings.
So I don't think they can winthirteen again, but could you win the
division with eleven? Probably that's theceiling on this team. So the volatility
is increased when it comes to actuallyall of the teams. It's like that.

(23:52):
So it's not just the Vikings,but you can make this same point
about everyone. And that's not thecase for a Buffalo, for a Kansas
City, for even Los Angeles Chargers, like where we know what they're going
to be assuming that their quarterbacks arehealthy. But can the Lions really run
back the offense that they had lastyear that was I mean, Darnwright downright
prolific at times that offense for them? Is their defensive improvement going to be

(24:15):
as significant as we expect it tobe because they added these veteran players,
we don't really know for sure.The Green Bay Packers, yeah, you
could project a lot of that lineup. And a funny thing to think about
the Packers is that it would itbe that hard for Jordan Love to match
what Aaron Rodgers did last year.It would be impossible for him to match

(24:36):
what Aaron Rodgers did over his career, but it would not be impossible for
him to match what he did lastyear. And if he was the same
quarterback as Rogers was last year,which is not that high of a bar,
that's maybe the fifteenth best quarterback inthe league, then they're a couple
of one score games away in Londonagainst the Giants, when they've got the
ball at the goal line they justneed to score. They lose that game.

(24:57):
I mean, there's a handful thatare very, very close for the
Packers. If it goes a differentway, I mean, they could be
a playoff team. But again,just like we're talking about the Vikings defense,
the range of outcomes on Jordan Loveis so wide that you're talking about
your projection and I'm sitting here thinking, how can you project anything when it
comes to Jordan Love, Because we'veonly seen a handful of snaps that he

(25:18):
took. We saw a miserable gamethat he played against Kansas City a couple
of years ago where he didn't lookprepared. I saw a little peak at
him when they were blowing out theVikings and he got in and through a
couple of passes, and I mean, he looked fairly comfortable. But we're
talking to blowout situation and Chicago.I mean justin fields. Range of outcomes
is massive with justin fields. Theman has had a tanking team two years

(25:41):
in a row. He finally midseason last year discovers that he's fast,
which is weird, but just cameout of nowhere. I'm fast and could
run past everyone. But now he'sgoing to do that for a whole off
season, in a whole year.He's got a good number one wide receiver,
his offensive line is improving, hisdefense is improving. Range of outcomes
on justin fields. He could bea star by the end of this year,

(26:03):
because I don't think the first twoyears of a quarterback are that predictive.
But he could also be a bustby the end of this year as
well and not figure out how tothrow the ball, and then he's just
fast Sam Darnold or something right,And so every single team. I think
that this is one of the mostdifficult to predict and project divisions in the
entire NFL. Yeah, it's crazyand to your point about the AFC and

(26:23):
the AFC. For you to bea contender, you need some teams that
have a lot of good fundamentals toall fail, right. They need to
like you. Basically, if youwant to win the AFC, you need
Kansas City and Buffalo and Cincinnati,and you know a couple other teams you
know like but though mostly those threeall teams that have the goods to all

(26:45):
struggle, which is a tough one, right. If you are in the
NFC, it's totally different. Likeyou need the opposite of a bunch of
teams without great fundamentals took to proceedright, Like you know, Philadelphia,
Dallas, San Francisco, Detroit,Seattle, those teams are the class of

(27:07):
the NFC, and they're basically alla step below, and they all are
fragile. If Geno Smith isn't asgood as he was a season ago,
if the Niners can't find an answerat quarterback, Dallas's coaching staff missus Kellen
Moore, and then the Eagles havethe injuries that they really didn't have until,
you know, at the key positionstill later in the season, then
the doors open for you in theAFC. It's much harder and and you

(27:30):
know again I think that that isyou know, very fundamental to um.
You know, projecting the season wherethere's a lot of variants in the in
the NFC, where you don't wantvariants in your life though, where you
want stability, Matthew, this isyour leading is in your daily grooming.
And look, you talk about theViking season has a lot of noise.

(27:52):
You know what, it doesn't havea lot of noise. Manscape and their
products, Manscapes products, you know, they allow you to take care of
yourself in peace and quiet. There'sstability every single time you use it,
and you know what to expect allthings that are not necessarily true all the
time about the Minnesota Vikings France aswe're talking about, even though our good

(28:14):
friend Queasy Dopamensa is trying to turnit around. But at Nanscape, everything's
already been turned around. You havethe lawn More four point fourth generation lawn
More. I'm like, I'm thinkingabout this, like I've said this every
single time. Like you know,Thomas is a second generation to mitrof in
the NFL, Shanahan's a second generationto I mean, Belichick's only a second

(28:36):
generation football guy Manscape, this fourthgeneration lawn more helping serve you if you're
not if you're not down with that, but you need to clean your nose
hairs or your ear hairs or allthose things that can make you look old.
We we whacker. It is foryou, but regardless of what you
want, regardless of whether that's foryou or for your your special person.

(28:59):
On Fither's Day, twenty percent offwith the promo code sumer su m E
R support the show Manscape dot Combackslash sumer. Okay, speaking of support,
just wow this, I mean,I've I've been on the listening end
of that thing many times, andpersons probably it's probably a privilege. By

(29:22):
the way, I'm going to seethe Atlanta Dream played the Las Vegas As
tonight. My daughter's favorite team isthe as is her favorite player is Kelsey
Plum. I'm excited for her toget to see the Aces in person,
but you know, it probably onlypales in comparison to seeing a Manscape Dad
rad in person. Um. Iwant to talk to you about your book
because look, we're both have bookscoming out. Your book is coming out

(29:45):
before mine. Your book is alsoprobably for more readers than mine is mine's
a football analytics book, a codingbook all that you by the way,
we're very gracious to read it forme. Very nice of you. And
of course your book is a Footballis a Numbers Game, a look into
pro football focus, and you know, and the inner gooings there. Obviously

(30:07):
I was there when you were writingit initially, and you know, as
somebody who's read various stages of it, it's wonderful. Um, it's a
really cool look into evolution of agame we've all loved. And you,
of course you know you and Iare you know, you're one of my
best friends. Like you know,we've interacted to the time. You sort
of knew a lot about PFF.But then you go ahead and start writing
this book in the summer of twentytwenty one, and I can't imagine you

(30:33):
knew that it was going to beas compelling as it was. But I'm
really excited for you and I youknow, just give your give my listeners
and our listeners a little bit ofan idea. So then go out by
your book. Yeah, it's asyou mentioned, football is a numbers Game
and Pro Football Focus and how adata driven approach shook up the sport,
and so yeah, I mean intwenty twenty one, I sort of took

(30:56):
notice of how much the NFL hadgrown just from an analytics perspective. It
wasn't just that teams were punting less, but also I was listening to a
podcast with you and Thomas Dedmitrov backwhen you were with PFF, and he
was talking about how fundamentally, andI quoted this in the book, that
the inner workings of a front officeand a coaching staff have been deeply impacted

(31:18):
by Pro Football focus. And oneof the ways that he talked about was
in the rooms when you're presenting ideasand opinions and what the team should do,
directions and things like that, thatthere's no longer this I'm louder than
you, or I have more ofa gut feeling than you, or this
player's reputation should be this way.That there's much more of a feeling that

(31:41):
you have to prove it. Andthat doesn't just mean with numbers, but
with empirical evidence, which you've donea great job and really interesting stuff in
tying together scouting and data, becauseevery scouting report is a data point in
the observations that scouts make about players, which I think that sometimes you have
people who want to make it scoutingversus numbers. But the NFL teams that

(32:02):
are smart are tying those two thingstogether sort of intrinsically. And you know,
as that really caught my ear,I remember thinking about that, like,
this is really a profound impact thatPFF has had. It's not just
hey, my alignment ranks number twoin something, but also think about when
we were growing up how we evaluateoffensive linemen. It was like where they

(32:23):
ranked on Madden or something, Andso there's you know, I talked with
Paul Alexander, the legendary offensive linecoach, who kind of took me through
his process as a coach and wherePF's data has helped him become a better
coach and get his message across andstudy players and teach players what to look
for on a game day and allthese things. So there are a million

(32:44):
kind of little micro things that PFhas impacted that add up to a lot.
And then what I also discovered wasa really fascinating story about Neil Hornsby,
who is the guy who hired youstarted PF from his house in England,
because he just loved football and wantedto understand football better. So he

(33:05):
started tracking every play and that grewinto this system that I think is a
mystery to most people. So whatI was able to do in this book
is peel back the curtain to showexactly how the grades are made, where
they came from, how Neil cameup with them, and how they have
been built from just a guy kindof guessing to now multiple layers of graders,

(33:29):
cross checkers, former players, BruceGradkowski, our buddy who was calling
plays in the XFL this year,responsible for cross checking all of the quarterback
stuff. Zach Robinson, who asa quarterback coach for the Rams. He
worked for PF and helped them designtheir system. And so it's sort of
funny when it's like, well,gms say that they don't look at those

(33:51):
numbers for the PF grades, Like, actually, it's the NFL who shaped
those numbers to what they are today, and that doesn't mean they're perfect.
But there's a much deeper story thanI think people understand. And that's sort
of only the tip of the iceberg. But I think that the more fascinating
part is just how much PF trackingthe data pulled back so much of the
curtain and how we see the gameand how we think about the game,

(34:14):
and then also made a lot ofplayers into stars that we didn't know we're
stars, And you got players inthe Hall of Fame and impact that the
way teams are thinking. And justto kind of add on to that,
I mean, you see this ina lot of different areas that PF didn't
cause, but was at the centerof the Big Datable. For example,
Michael Lopez, who does analytics forthe NFL and runs the Big Datable.

(34:37):
You have hundreds of people making presentationsto NFL teams and lots of people getting
hired by NFL teams, added tofront offices that are building and growing,
and I think that you only canreally see how far the game has come
by doing what we do, whichis by going back and watching a game
from two twelve and you go,wow, there's so many things that they're

(35:00):
doing that are differently out there,and their approach to when they run the
ball and when they punt and allthese things, and then roster building and
everything else. It's every area playervalue. I talked to an agent who
worked with PF early in his agentcareer to help him get a better contract
for a special teamer and stuff likethat. So I uncovered a lot of
stuff that I think people would notunderstand about PF. When you see maybe

(35:23):
their Twitter account send out the topten graded players or something, and then
you quote tweeted and say, BFwhat they're talking about, And it's like
every NFL building is using PF's UltimateSystem every single day and what they do
to shape every game plan, howthey watch film, all those things.
So you know, that's I'm givingmore than an elevator pitch for the book

(35:45):
here, but it's just it fascinatedme at the time. And I will
have to say, when I startedthe project to the end of it,
I had no idea how much Iwas going to uncover. And there's a
lot of that's got double, triple, quadruple meaning to it. But I
really came away amazed at how muchpeople don't know about a company that's been

(36:06):
so influential to the NFL over thelast ten years. Yeah, it's crazy,
Like I certainly now I'm with Sumerand you know, I think I
think back in my days like theycertainly gave me a platform to become who
I was, you know, theyyou know, when I was just a
dinky little college math professor. Theygave me a platform to write and do
research, and you know, youthink about you know, I, you

(36:28):
know, the data is such anamazing part of what they do. And
then the people that we're all there, you know, you know, Austin
Gale and Mike Renner and you knowyou think about Steve and Sam are still
there, but you know, BradSpielberg is still there, amazing, Ben
Brown, TEAMO Risky, you know, those are all people who have had
a part in changing a lot offootball. And then you know you sit
back and think about the you knowwhere you know now it's going right like

(36:52):
pef as the data, you know, they're kind of the what and then
you know we were building out kindof the so what. And then Sumer
Sports, you know, kind oflooks at this situations as no, let's
get some of the best and brighteston this side doing just analysis, doing
just the so what, like buildingoff of that, and you know,
now I get to work with TayeSeth and of course interns I've had there

(37:13):
now working for the Jets and theand the UM, the Detroit Lions,
and and so forth. By theway, UM, you know, uh
Dan voting one of our great listenersthat this pre order the book. So
I'm I'm I'm really uh you know, I'm really excited for the story of
where of a company that was reallyan important part of my life, an
important part of football. Um toto get out there and you know now

(37:37):
that you know we're here and youknow, uh a different companies sort of
trying to trying to build upon whatthey did. You know, it's interesting,
Um, you know that's the greatquote that you stand on the shoulders
of giants, the you know,to to see further. Um, that's
certainly you did a great job ofdocumenting that there and I can't wait for
people, um to read that soon Amazon. And I have this in

(37:59):
this show description the link to thebook Football is a Numbers Game by Matthew
Collor Matthew as you sort of letlet's let's end on this. So we
talked about the vikings, we talkedabout your book, We talk about the
state of football analytics. I kindof want what you know when you think
about, Okay, football has comefrom here to there, what is the

(38:22):
next step? What is our nextstep? In terms of understanding football in
a broader sense, because I canthink of a million things that we're working
on a lot of them at SUMERand I, you know, I really
I'm really excited about where we're going. But from you know, when we're
thinking about, Okay, how dowe get the football fan more engaged,
how do we get the the NFLteams to sort of think a little bit

(38:45):
differently, what is the what isthe most fertile soil there? Because I
feel like we've got we've gone adecent way, but in the ocean of
possibilities, we really have only doneWe've only drank a glass and a half.
Yeah. Something Chris Collinsworth said tome when I was interviewing for this
book they really stuck out, washe said, I tell my guys that

(39:07):
we never have all the answers,and if we did, we would have
fixed all the NFL teams by now. And I think that that is such
an interesting driving force for all analyticspeople. And I think about baseball and
how it went through its moneyball phase. But when you think about moneyball,
they're touting the on base percentage,right, like, man, they need
to look at those walks and thinkwhere we are twenty years later, where

(39:30):
you get the spin rate of aball actually revealed which pitchers were cheating by
putting extra stuff on the ball becausewe have the spin rate and we get
how you should be swinging a baseballbat to create the launch angle that's going
to give you the most ideal linedrive that will leave the park and everything

(39:50):
else. I mean, there's allthese sort of scientific things that I think
are the next level of that wherewe understand a lot of the basics.
The hey, guys who walk aregood, or pitchers who have more strikeouts
are good. Like these things werekind of um known, but really we
sharpened our eye to them in termsof decision making and how we analyze them
and how we view them as fans. And I think we've gotten there in

(40:12):
a lot of ways in football.But I also think that there is,
because of tracking data, a wholeworld that we're sort of watching football and
standard death still and there's an HDto be taken taken back here or to
be advanced to to an HD wherewe can really understand why certain types of

(40:32):
switch types of players see there's eithercompletion percentage you know, over expected and
rushing your Zets inspected things like thatthat I think are giving us a little
bit of a view of what's goingon. But we can do so much
better, and I think people aregoing to work on it, and I

(40:55):
think a lot of and it's it'snot just you, but it's also you
know, someone like Timo for PFFand Kevin Cole and people like this who
have really looked closely into the draftthat I think that we're understanding the draft
better than we did before, butin no way are we coming close to
predicting it. And Mike Renner said, you know, someday we might be

(41:15):
able to predict sixty percent of thepicks accurately to whether they'll work out or
not instead of forty percent or thirtypercent. So it is the fascinating part
about science in general, and scienceapplies here is that it's never ending.
And I think the best part ofthat is that fans are engaged in this
and actually get to bear its fruittoo, or eat its fruit. Because

(41:39):
a lot of things that analytics findare more fun this was not the case
in baseball, like more strikeouts orwhatever is not fun and slower games and
everything else that they had to makea bunch of changes. More three pointers
is not always fun if they missa lot of them, but in football,
it's like more explosive plays and goingfor it on fourth down. And
there's also the more we understand howthe salary cap works, how player evaluations

(42:04):
work, the more we can allplay armchair GM. And that's been a
huge, huge part of my careeris using PF data to play armchair GM,
to question Rick Spielman, order toquestion Quasi and Afa Mensa, to
say, look at some of thesenumbers and you're making a move that doesn't
add up. And I think thatwe can grow in what we have for
the accuracy of that data, evenbeyond just what PF has, which is

(42:27):
unbelievable for us to have now incompared to touchdowns and interceptions and yards per
attempt. So like all the informationthat we have, but I think that
that it's it's made being a footballfan better to be able to see players,
to give them credit, to beable to understand when your team signs
an offensive lineman, did they makethe right decision? I mean, and
sometimes you know, you think it'snot, and then it turns out to

(42:51):
be, you know, because nodata is perfect. But then there's all
these interesting discussions within that too.So I think that on a lot of
levels we could stay it will bemuch smarter as an NFL, and that
a lot of teams, a lotof the smart teams, if not almost
every team at this point is workingevery day to try to find how can
we be that much percentage better?Quasy and Awflemensa said something like that not

(43:14):
too long ago, like we're lookingat the edges and where can we be
just percentage points better? Because everyoneis good and everyone has lots of great
players in the NFL, but howcan we be just a little tiny bit
smarter to separate ourselves? And that'salways the race that we're that we're doing.
And I feel like with the datathat we have publicly that PFF has

(43:35):
come up with, and you knowthe tracking data as well, we can
all come along for that ride.Journalists can, how we write about it,
how we talk about it, fanscan, And that is something that
you know, I don't know ifI mean it has existed really since Moneyball,
but I think with football, becausehalf of the joy is playing front
office with the draft and everything else. You know how fun draft simulators are

(43:57):
I'm sure you're going to build one. So like all those all those things
I think are tremendous elements of thefootball analytics revolution that have made it a
better experience for all football fans.I think, yeah, for sure.
I think to your point, Ithink people want to simulate what it's like
to and that's why fantasy football isso it's so impactful. And I think,

(44:20):
you know, for folks who aremaybe want a little bit of more
of like normal football flavor, likeyou know us at Summer Sports, we're
going to have you know, productsfor that. And then also you know
the fantasy aspect of it too,where you literally are picking a team and
seeing how it's done. But youknow, I think about the draft.
You know, that's kind of youknow, we're we're going to do that
better. But to your point,the draft is like we're already there,

(44:43):
you know, in terms of interest, and now you sort of think about
over the cap and the great workthat Jason Fitzgerald and Brad Spielberger and those
folks have done to sort of getpeople on the right path. You know,
you see an article the other dayon Viking's terror or whatever. It's
like they don't understand what June firstis, right, don't understand why the
Vikings have waited this long to makea decision on Dalman Cook. And that's

(45:04):
again no one. You know,we're just starting to get the kind of
the draft in this efficient place salarycap you know, we think about you
know, the cap as being somethingthat only geniuses can understand. We really
just arithmetic. We get to maybecut down day, we get to things
like that, and we get toon field play. You know, we
just scratched the surface on that withfourth downs and all those things. So

(45:25):
what I love and then the gameis going to evolve, right, you
know, teams playing too high now, rushing efficiency is higher than it's been
in decades, and so I justlove football for that aspect. And I
think, you know, PfP wasyou know, instrumental and getting kind of
the first few question first bunch ofquestions solved hopefully you know as we as
we you know, are in thisarms race now to solve the next questions.

(45:45):
Um, they give us even moreso this has been fun a map
by the way, everybody that's onthe on the stream right now, we
thank you for coming, like,subscribe, rate and review the show.
There have been a lot of goodreviews on the Apple podcasts. Um you
know, tell a friend about theshow, so then when we become big,
you'll you can say I like thisband first and again. Go to

(46:07):
Matthew Caller's book Football is a numbersgame. You can get it. You
can pre order on Amazon wherever yourbooks are sold. So four guests,
Matthew Caller, This has been EricEager. This has been episode sixty two
of the Summer Sports Show