-Before you, there was not this sort of exhaustive...
analytical, statistical, analysis of football,
and the way that you did it.
And you first started this
because you wanted to prove a reporter wrong.
Can you explain that? -Yeah.
isn't that how everybody starts their careers?
-[ Laughs ] Yeah. -I don't know.
So I was just a run of the mill Patriots fan.
I was working in the Internet industry.
-Whoo! -Patriots fans? Okay, all right.
[ Cheering ]
And so 2002 came,
and they had won the Super Bowl the year before.
They missed the playoffs,
and a fellow by the name of Ron Borges who, at the time,
was writing for the "Boston Globe,"
would write that the reason that the Patriots didn't make it
back to the playoffs was that they couldn't establish the run.
And at the same time, Ron Borges,
the team that he liked to win it all was Oakland.
And back then, their running back
was a guy named Charlie Garner,
who was basically a pass receiver,
and they ran less than any other team.
So I said, "This doesn't add up.
"How -- how can you believe
"that teams need to run as much as possible,
and yet your favorite team is the one that never runs?"
-Yeah. -So I'm like, okay.
So I was big fan of Bill James
and all of those baseball analyticians.
And they got started, they were just working their day jobs,
and they're just looking through box scores
and they start counting numbers to try to answer questions.
I said, "I'm gonna go do the same thing."
So I started counting through box scores to see whether
teams that ran the ball more early in games,
no matter how good they were at it,
did they actually win more games?
And that's what we -- we would now call "fake news."
-[ Laughs ] Okay, gotcha.
-And but -- I had this big database of, like,
every play in the NFL season from 2002.
So I'm like, okay. Well, what can I do with this?
So I started brainstorming and creating these stats and...
and then I started writing some articles
and sharing it with people, and there was some interest.
-And then when did you realize,
"Oh, I can make a career of this"?
There's a market for this kind of statistical analysis.
-Well, I didn't know at first.
But I-I shared with some people I knew in the sports industry
through my Internet job.
And they said, "This is probably a little too esoteric
"for the sites like ESPN and foxsports.com,
but, you know, you might find some interest."
So me and some fraternity brothers,
we started this website.
And -- The lucky thing that happened for me was,
we started it around the same time
that Michael Lewis wrote "Moneyball."
-Sure, about the Oakland A's and Billy Beane
and how they used statistics
to sort of outdo the competition.
-Right, and so all of a sudden now,
everybody, in the business world in particular,
are all talking about the I.T. of sports analytics.
And they go looking on the Internet for, you know,
the "Moneyball of" fill in name of sport.
-Right. -And there we are.
-[ Laughs ] -The "Moneyball" of the NFL,
which just happens to be
the most popular sport in the United States.
And we're the website that has finally launched to do this.
And we grew from there.
-And now, of course, "Moneyball" was...you know,
it was about teams finding these sort of genius statisticians
to give them an advantage over other teams.
Do you feel like NFL teams are using your stats,
and using the work you've done
to try to make their teams better?
-Yeah, a lot of them use our stats or from companies,
you know, other websites and writers that have sprung up
somewhat similar to us.
And people are getting hired by teams.
The things in the NFL are very proprietary,
so teams are very secretive about it.
But they're using it more and more.
And the other thing is, that in the NFL,
they have more information than I'll ever have.
Certainly they know more about their own players
than I ever will, because they can break down the film
and create stats off of that,
knowing what the play calls were,
talking to the coaches about which players
were doing the right thing or not doing the right thing.
A lot of times when you're on outside,
it's hard to tell what the players' responsibility was
on the play. -On the outside,
can you still watch football and enjoy it?
Or are you constantly seeing 1's and 0's
when you're watching a game? [ Laughter ]
-It depends if it's 4th and short or not.
-[ Laughs ] Okay, gotcha. It depends. Right.
-If it's 4th or short, all I see are numbers
and I start yelling at the television.
Now when the Patriots are on the road,
I watch the 1:00 and 4:00 games.
Pretty much like any other fan, I'm rooting for my team.
I'm rooting for my fantasy football players.
I'm watching with friends.
I also tweet out to the followers on Twitter,
and I'm taking notes for the site,
but I don't get into the, like, number breakdown stuff
until the NBC game is on, on Sunday nights.
And then usually, when I'm watching that game,
I have to be working on stuff, 'cause I have to run things
when the game is over to put articles up on Monday.
When the Patriots are at home, I'm usually at Gillette Stadium
in the press box, where the desserts are delicious.
-Oh, that's good to know.
-And I would heartily recommend people being
part of the Boston sports media solely...
-[ Laughs ] For the desserts?
-...for the red velvet cake at Gillette Stadium.
-I'm gonna ask you a few quick questions,
lightning round, about football coming up.
Jay Cutler to the Dolphins --
Is gonna make any impact on the Dolphins' season?
-You know, I actually don't think he's that much different
in quality from Tannehill, if his shoulder is okay.
The problem with Cutler is you don't know
if the shoulder's okay 'cause he's 34,
he had the labrum surgery last year.
Also, this is not statistics,
but no one seems to like him.
-Yeah. [ Laughter ]
-So I would think --
Like, I'm not a world's expert on chemistry,
but there's never been any really good stories
about Jay Cutler and chemistry.
-Well, people seem to like people more in Florida.
[ Laughter ]
Patriots repeating as Super Bowl champions?
-I mean, they're the -- they're the clear easy fit.
-Yeah.
-Right, they're the best team in the league.
They built more over the off-season.
They have the easiest projected schedule by our numbers.
-So what is -- When you are the presumptive favorite
and you have all of those things going for you,
what, as a statistician, what percent of this --
if you played a million seasons, how many do the Patriots win?
What percentage do they win?
-Well, it turns out we did play a million seasons in this book.
And that's the thing, right? I mean, there's 32 teams,
and there's a lot of things you can't predict.
So even the best team that is so clearly ahead of everybody else,
only wins the Super Bowl 22% of the time.
-Wow. So the rest of us have a shot?
-Everybody else has a shot,
just the Patriots have the biggest shot.
-How many times do the Browns win?
-More than six.
-More than six out of a million? -Yes.
-All right, well,
that's exciting for the people of Cleveland.
Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.
Aaron Schatz, everybody.
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