When you think of former New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin, you don’t typically think of a technically or analytically savvy man.
Coughlin was an old-school football mind who did things the old-school football way. That is, until a conversation with his late wife Judy showed the coach a bit more of his personal side.
As it turns out, that wasn’t the only evolution Coughlin made during his time with the Giants.
In the new book, Football is a numbers game: How a professional football-focused, data-driven approach shook up the sportPFF’s Matthew Coller said Coughlin was so fascinated by analytics data that the company had to hire someone to deal solely with the Giants.
“The more information we got, the more Tom Coughlin wanted to go to (former Giants senior director of football information) Jon Berger and say, ‘Hey, can you give this to PFF?’ Can you figure it out?’ (It) got to the point where PFF assigned a person to answer questions from the Giants.” Coller elaborated on the Giants Huddle podcast..
Coughlin and the Giants were so pleased with the help provided by the PFF staff that they invited him to Super Bowl XLVI on their behalf.
“The second time they went to the Super Bowl, I gave that guy Super Bowl tickets because I felt he was very valuable in helping them and answering any of Tom Coughlin’s questions,” Coller said. Coller said. .
Obviously, a lot more data than PFF data was used to defeat the New England Patriots for the second time in four years, but unbeknownst to many, Coughlin consumed all the data available. And he certainly paid dividends.
