John Harbaugh hasn’t even officially held his introductory press conference yet, and he is already making significant changes to the New York Giants’ infrastructure.
According to Ian O’Connor of The Athletic, Harbaugh plans to make immediate upgrades to the Giants’ analytics department—a unit that has long been overlooked by the organization.
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John Harbaugh is Bringing Analytics to the Giants
For Harbaugh, data isn’t a suggestion; it’s a gameday weapon. During his tenure in Baltimore, Harbaugh was arguably the NFL’s most prominent advocate for real-time data integration. That forward-thinking nature is coming to New York.
“We are going to bolster up the analytics a bit,” he told Ian O’Connor.
Harbaugh has always been on the cutting edge of analytics. He is arguably the NFL’s most prominent advocate for process-oriented decision-making over results-oriented judgment.
Harbaugh’s usage of analytics is defined by aggression. He consistently ranks at the top of the league in optimal 4th down decision-making as he views 4th down not as a gamble, but as a probability equation. He often says he marries gut with analytics. However, his gut has been retrained by the data. He trusts his players to execute the math.
Harbaugh Has Always Been on the Cutting Edge of Analytics
The Ravens had a live, active feed of probabilities going into Harbaugh’s headset during games — a new strategy he will likely deploy with the Giants. Daniel Stern served as the Ravens’ Director of Football Strategy/Assistant QB Coach, speaking into Harbaugh’s headset and offering him analytical insights to aid in decision-making.
Stern sat in a chair right next to the Ravens’ offensive coordinator in the weather-proof coaches’ level of the stadium. Like a play caller, Stern wore team-issued apparel and one of those big black Bose headsets with a direct line of communication down to the field to Harbaugh, per Baltimore Magazine.
Harbaugh had a staffer in the booth in this role for years in Baltimore. Stern notably had Harbaugh’s ear, quickly and clearly relaying “the numbers”— the so-called win probabilities and risk-reward ratios of certain situations.
In all likelihood, Harbaugh will bring in a football analyst to play a similar role to the one Stern played in Baltimore (maybe even Stern himself) with the New York Giants.
Harbaugh’s Ravens had a Football Research department. Expect that to be brought to Big Blue as well.
This department, led by minds like Scott Cohen and the aforementioned Stern, was responsible for developing in-house software that processed millions of data points, from player tracking speed to win-probability shifts in real-time.
Unlike teams that treat analysts as back-office number crunchers, Harbaugh integrated them directly into the heartbeat of gameday.
By bringing this infrastructure to East Rutherford, the Giants will be shifting from a gut-feeling organization to one that utilizes predictive modeling for everything from clock management to coaches’ challenges. It’s a move that will essentially give Jaxson Dart and the offense more possessions, more aggression, and a strategic edge that has been the secret key to the Ravens’ perennial playoff runs.
A New, Modern Era for the Giants
The hiring of Harbaugh represents a massive win for Joe Schoen, who has spent the last few years trying to modernize the Giants’ scouting techniques. While Schoen ditched the paper and binders of the past for computers and advanced technology, Harbaugh is now coming in to fix how that data is used on Sundays.
In Baltimore, Harbaugh’s staff was known to spare no expense on analytics and personnel. By adjusting the reporting structure to give Harbaugh direct influence over these departments, the Giants are effectively skipping a decade of evolution to land at the forefront of the league’s analytical revolution.