New head coach Pete Carroll is putting the Raiders at forefront of NFL's AI movement
Whether we like it or not, AI is here to stay. And for NFL clubs, that means either get onboard or watch as other teams use it to gain an advantage.
Despite being the oldest head coach in the NFL, Pete Carroll is making sure it doesn't miss that boat. In fact, the Raiders, under his and GM John Spytek's guidance are at the forefront of the AI revolution, trying to gain everything they can from its implementation.
Tuesday, Josh Kendall at The Athletic put out a piece on the NFL's use of AI to help teams prepare. Heavily featured in the piece was Carroll along with newly hired Ryan Paganetti who carries the title of "Head Coach research specialist". Which, these days, pretty much means he's their AI specialist.
'I don't think when I was hired the idea was, 'This is our AI guy,' but there is no doubt whatsoever that I am going to be using AI every single day,' Paganetti told The Athletic. 'And probably in increasingly larger amounts every month that goes by.'
Paganetti began his NFL career as an analyst with the Eagles in 2015 and two years later became the team's assistant linebackers coach, a position he held in various forms for four years.
In 2022, the Dartmouth alum joined the Jaguars staff, this time focusing on analytics. After three years there, he joined Carroll's staff in Las Vegas. And he thinks not only will AI begin replacing some coaching positions, but become a tool that could give a team an bigger edge than that of on-field talent.
'I feel pretty confident saying some team is going to win a Super Bowl in the next few years utilizing AI at a very high rate, significantly higher than it has ever been used before,' he said. 'It's really an opportunity to differentiate yourself from a team that might have a more talented roster or better coaches or whatnot. There is going to be more and more separation with teams that are bought in.'
Currently the NFL does not allow AI to be used during games. Where it can assist teams and coaches is in preparing during the week. While classically, coaches and players will grind out tape for hours and hours to find tendencies, which would mean plenty of late nights and early mornings, AI can often do the same work in minutes.
For that reason, you can clearly see why a 73-year-old head coach might be interested. Carroll is known for having uncommon energy for his age. While many coaches are considered well past it by his age, he still manages to do his job at a high level and keep the same spirit he has had for decades. With more and more teams turning the analytics to find an edge, Carroll would be a fool to get stuck in the old ways.
'It's just such a wide-open domain to kind of figure things out and do things new, take advantage and utilize everything you can think of,' Carroll said. 'That's something I like, man. If you're not curious, you're not growing. The last thing I'm going to do is ignore AI.'
An NFL team poll done by ESPN's Seth Walder in September of last year set about getting some numbers on teams' use of AI. The results yielded were that there were five main areas they said AI helped the most.
1. Game planning (9)2. College player evaluation (5)3T. Draft selection forecasting (3)3T. Game management (3)5. Pro player evaluation (2)
Walder also asked which teams were the most analytically driven in the NFL. The Browns took the top spot in most of those areas, including having a league-leading 10 employees who focus on AI and analytics. About half the league showed up somewhere in the conversation as far as being analytically advanced. The Raiders were not among them.
There was, however, one team at the other end of that spectrum as seemingly the lone holdout -- John Spytek's former team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. As of the start of last season, while Spytek was still the assistant GM in Tampa, the Bucs were the only team in the league with still just one person on the staff who focused on analytics.
Clearly this is an area in which Carroll is thrusting the Raiders ahead.
While we don't know exactly how many people other than Paganetti the Raiders currently employ to focus on AI, but Walder recently noted that most of the NFL has between three and six employees working with analytics.
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