The Cleveland Browns have been far from the NFL’s model franchise when it comes to playing winning football since the early 21st century. Since their comeback in 1999, they have won one playoff game. However, that doesn’t mean everything they do is bad.
One area where the Browns stand out is their use of analytics. Although difficult to quantify on a win-loss basis, their work in the analytics field under general manager Andrew Berry has received considerable praise around the league. And over the weekend, Mike Vrabel was hired as head coach of the New England Patriots, so there may be a spinoff in New England soon.
After all, Vrabel spent the 2024 season doing consulting work with the Browns. It’s unclear what specific interaction he had with the team’s analytics staff, but he mentioned Berry during Monday’s introductory press conference. It’s easy to imagine that he had at least some exposure to Cleveland’s approach to looking at the game from a data-driven perspective.
We’ll see what this means for his tenure with the Patriots. But on Monday, Vrabel laid out a rough plan.
“We want to use as much information as possible to make better, informed decisions in real time with real people,” he explained during an appearance on WEEI.
“Things change — the weather, the reserves, who’s in the game, how their defense is playing, how their offense is playing, did you stop them?” We use that information all the time. I will try my best to do so. I’m excited to be here with our staff and see what they’ve done. ”
Vrabel specifically mentioned three areas.
Player acquisition
“How do you apply analytics?” he asked in relation to the Patriots’ acquisitions. “Numbers, data, speed of play, estimated speed of play, all these different things can be used to evaluate players. That’s one of the areas we’re looking to leverage that into.”
Using analytics to determine which players are a good fit for a team is not a new concept. New England has been doing it their way for years. However, the amount of information that can be obtained varies greatly depending on the improvement of technological capabilities. For example, tracking players in 2025 and the data associated with it is on another level today.
However, it remains to be seen how much of a difference that will make for Vrabel’s Patriots. But at least he’s not against adopting new(ish) methods of gathering information.
Player health and safety
“How do we manage our players? What is their workload? What is their speed? How often do they reach 90 percent of their top speed?” Vrabel asked. “Let’s look at all the numbers that come out of a match. Let’s say a player’s maximum speed is 20 miles per hour. Well, at least once during a match, you have to run a certain distance at 90%. So if you’re a gunner, a receiver, or a player below, you should run X distance at 18 miles per hour.
“We can see what they do in games, and we want to make sure they’re replicating it at least once a season or once a week. So , how we track player load management, how we structure practices, all of these things.”
Health has been an issue for the Patriots in recent years, and he actively helped the team win just eight games over the past two seasons. Needless to say, not all of that is due to mismanagement, but teams need all the help they can get to keep the number of player injuries down.
game management
“The final part of the analysis is the game management and the risk ratios that go into it, and all the different scenarios you look at throughout the game,” Vrabel concluded. “Obviously, we’re always going to use analytics and then make decisions.”
The Patriots were the NFL’s least offensive team in 2024, according to data compiled by rbsdm.com. Choosing to leave the offense on the field in just one of four favorable situations, Jerod Mayo’s team ranked in the dead. Last year’s Go rate was at the bottom of the league.
While some of that may be due to Mayo’s inexperience as a rookie head coach, the fact remains that the Patriots would have benefited from a more proactive approach to game management. If the numbers paint a positive picture, Vrabel doesn’t seem to be against it. However, that alone looks like an upgrade.
After all, analytics is just one piece of the decision-making puzzle. Still, it’s a welcome sign that Vrabel is willing to embrace it as a coach, often tied to an old-school approach to football that he learned during his year in Cleveland. That might be the case.
