Eagles add a rising star in the analytics world to Howie Roseman's staff

[ASFN Admin]

The NFL used to be a ground-and-pound, defense-wins championships type of league, but those days are long gone, replaced by analytics and next-gen stats. The NFL’s love for analytics has grown immensely, and Eagles owners Jeffrey Lurie and Joe Banner have played a massive role in shepherding a new era of statistics-based football.

We had some observations before we got into the league; basic things that nobody was challenging,’’ Banner said. “Things like the whole notion that you had to run early and couldn’t throw off play-action without running early, and the notion that you had to wear down the other team by running.

“Things that, to this day, many people still say and believe. You’d talk to people and ask them why, and nobody really had an answer. And they weren’t going to listen to two guys like us who were being identified, and frankly, demonized at the time, as non-football guys.’’

Lurie hired three staffers from MIT after purchasing the Eagles.

The rest is history, as Banner passed down his vision to a young Howie Roseman, who has carried the mantle while adding his genius to the methodology. Lurie and Banner helped Philadelphia and other teams move away from primarily running the football on first downs while utilizing innovative theories that currently carry the NFL.

The Eagles are adding another rising talent in analytics. Seth Walder reports that the team has hired Smit Bajaj as a quantitative analyst.

He'll start with the team in July.

The Eagles are hiring Smit Bajaj as a quantitative analyst, per source. He'll start with the team in July.

Bajaj was part of the winning Big Data Bowl team this year for this project: https://t.co/zGwy3oeSES

— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) May 2, 2025

Walker reports that Bajaj was part of the winning Big Data Bowl team this year for a project in which he and a partner built a Transformer-based model predicting man/zone coverage in the presnap that peaked at 89% accuracy before the snap, and 93% 1 sec after the snap.

Excited to share our (w/ @VishakhS74) entry to the '25 #BigDataBowl!

We built a Transformer-based model predicting man/zone coverage in the presnap... peaking at 89% accuracy before the snap— and 93% 1sec after the snap

(More below!) pic.twitter.com/rWInHJNM9i

— Smit (@SBajajSports) January 6, 2025

ESPN previously cited the Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Ravens, and Eagles as the three most analytically advanced teams. They also finished 1-2-3 for the highest level of analytics work and incorporated their analytics into decision-making.

The six teams ranked last in using analytics were the Las Vegas Raiders, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Chicago Bears, the Atlanta Falcons, and the Arizona Cardinals.

This article originally appeared on Eagles Wire: Eagles are hiring Smit Bajaj as a quantitative analyst

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