The Philadelphia Eagles let their analytics team talk to the coaches during games, and that is perhaps one of the worst ideas that any team has ever had. If you have seen a show called "The Good Place," you know why this is a really Bad Idea. In case you have not seen it, let's just say that one of the characters ends up in hell because they make everything way too complicated.
You cannot make decisions in a football game with help from the analytics team. That's why you have a quality control assistant. That person holds the wire for the coach's headphones, lets them know how many timeouts there are, and reminds the coach of the rules.
How bad can this choice get for the Eagles?
How do you make decisions?
There is no possible way in the world that someone will be able to make a decision on the sideline while having a conversation with someone who is telling them that there is a 17.5% chance of it succeeding. People, there is a reason why guys are coaching in the NFL.
They have seen these situations happen, and they are making the best decisions they can. Yes, certain guys who do not make good decisions get fired and cost their teams games, but most coaches are doing a decent job. They are losing because of a lack of talent on the roster or conditions during the game.
You cannot add analytics to that and expect any game to be played well.
Football will actually get worse because the teams are not making decisions that have any sort of finality. Coaches will mess up once, wonder about the statistics, and then keep messing up.
How can the offense flow?
The offense in Philly cannot flow from one play to another if they are spending all the play clock time wondering if they want to make the play that has a 22.3% chance of succeeding or the play that has a 22.4% chance of succeeding.
That is not only completely ridiculous, but it will make it very hard for the offense to think that they are making the right decisions. Football players who are playing without total confidence in what is going on will get hurt more often. I predict more injuries for the Eagles, and I think that they will start to get worse the more they use analytics to try to make decisions.
Most successful offense didn't rely on analytics
Who had the most successful offense in history? If you read stats, it would be peyton manning with the Colts. However, it would be Peyton Manning running the offense himself. Do you really think he was checking stats during the game? No, he was not.
