Game Plan: A Radical Approach to Decision Making in the National Football League

First, let me say that the author's (Frank DuPont) assertion that the NFL relies on mid-twentieth century processes to evaluate players, coaches, and overall on-field strategy is a valid point. This is visible every Sunday during the season, during the draft, and at training camp. Teams often confuse and misinterpret visual cues and language for honest evaluation.So, what IF technology, similar to sabermetrics, were more fully implemented? Would teams more accurately assess player skills? Would coaching staffs be more fully capable of executing development strategies if rigid formulas were developed and adhered to? What about league operations?DuPont tries to make the point that a larger talent pool of individuals could, and should, be given access to the NFL, creating a new era of leadership, where higher minds build stronger strategic teams. Nice, but DuPont largely ignores what coaches ACTUALLY do!It's insufficient to address the problems inherent to coaching and building a strong strategic model without addressing the ability to reach and get players to buy in to the coaching! Sure, it would be nice to develop all kinds of X and O stuff, a strong front office, and a wonderful set of minds controlling things, but if the players on the team find the staff overbearing, thick-headed about their "new way" of doing things, or poor at motivation, then many of the best players on a team will seek free agency or demand a trade because the head coach and his staff "don't get it", so to speak.And, I must say, the thought that Madden Football video game players would make good coaches, just because they can play thousands of games a year on an Xbox is absurd. No legitimate NFL, college, or even high school football program will see "Played 4000 games of Madden in 4 years" on a resume and regard that experience relevant to the job description. Not realistic at all.Further, what the author claims as an analogous to NFL franchise coaching is playing poker. Poker, where you are only responsible for your own performance, not the performance of 53 players, dozens of coaches and trainers, and where you would not have to answer to your GM and team owner. Sure, the intellectual in all of us may assume that playing thousands of hands of poker would surely increase the strategic knowledge of the game, reflected in winnings, fame, and so on. But the realist also MUST assume that a poker player's skills increase proportional to experience of only him/herself, not others reliant on you to raise, call, etc...Lastly, although NFL franchises should look to the future, allowing deeper statistical analysis to prevail over "gut instinct", the author never quite arrives at pointing out "where" these analysts should fit in to a franchise's model. I kept wondering when he was going to get to the point. When was he going to point out that a new office placard should be engraved with the title: "Statistically based Strategic Modernization and Evaluation Department". Who would sit in that seat? A poker player? A Madden Player? But, apparently, certainly NOT a former football player.

This book is a remarkable study of the NFL and the processes it undertakes to hire and fire coaches, GM's, prepare for games, manage the clock during games, call plays during crucial moments in games and introduces qualitative and quantitative analysis to scouting, drafting and managing the clubs themselves.This is a clarion call to the NFL to join other industries in an analytic approach to management. For the "Stats are for Loser's" club, this represents the fear and uneasy feeling they feel when they utter those words about stats because now they have no excuse to not use their brain to determine the best course of action to take in any given game situation.The NFL is full of dinosaurs that make poor decisions because of poor cognitive ability, lack of practice, void of analytics and no collaborative learning process in place. Why is that? Could it be that the game relies of a very small talent pool from which to draw staff and management? Yes, says Frank DuPont, author of this wonderful, illuminating book.This book uses several comparisons, backed up by scientific studies, to make the point that coaches and their staffs, even GM's could benefit from using simulators and learn techniques from other endeavors to better their game and enhance their chance for victory. There is an excellent quantitative study between video games and the NFL. Look at it this way, pilots use simulators to fly planes, why can't NFL teams use simulators to gain practice for their coaches? Simulation is the key for better outcomes.DuPont uses the No Limit Texas Hold `em Poker revolution in 2003 that enabled millions to learn and play the game online and thus gave many the experience and confidence to play in the World Series of Poker matches. What was the result? The top players of poker are now, on average, twenty years younger than the pre-2003 status quo nature of the game. By enabling millions to play and enter the poker world, the internet gave experience and thus enlarged the talent pool to the point where it has revolutionized the game. The same thing can happen to the NFL.Think of the talent pool for NFL coaches now: It's pretty thin, right? If you open up and enlarge the pool, then you get the best talent in the land, not just because you were a former player or a relative of management or ownership. Football coaches must have the same qualities as a puzzle solver or computer programmer, according to DuPont. He claims, and we know, that the brain becomes less effective at reasoning as we get older. NFL coaches are up against the clock throughout the game and the ability to quickly and accurately reason through decisions is still needed. These are abilities that decline with age. Studies show, as stated in the book, that video games improve reasoning ability, or fluid intelligence. Fluid intelligence is our ability to solve new problems.This is an important book and I want you to read it. You can find it here on Amazon: Game Plan: A Radical Approach to Decision Making in the National Football League, and it's cost is only .99 cents. It will change the way you look at the game, for the better. It's only available on Kindle at Amazon. The Kindle app is free for your PC and Smartphone. You can find Frank DuPont on Twitter @FantasyDouche, give him a follow.

I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, I like DuPont's approach to evaluating decision making in the NFL: nothing is sacred. He calls out concepts that he thinks do not make sense, even if they are considered given truths among NFL circles. However, some of his proposals are hard to embrace.For example, I fully believe that, just as stated on this book, Sean Payton is a better coach than Jason Garrett because Sean Payton has more experience coaching and making game-time decisions. However, DuPont goes one step further and proposes that players of the popular Madden video game series could probably be even better at game-time decisions, based on them having spent more time making them. What I don't buy is that those video game players are playing a simulation, which happens to be someone's interpretation of reality. That is, they may be better Madden players, but not necessarily better NFL coaches, as NFL coaches face different problems in reality compared to a video game. To name a couple:- NFL coaches see the game at ground level, from the sideline, under uncomfortable circumstances (noise, weather). Video game players see the game from a great angle while sitting on their couch or desk.- NFL coaches have to process more information than video game players. How well did a player perform on practice? What's the emotional state of certain critical players (i.e. kicker on a bad streak)? Video game players face less uncertainty while playing Madden.I give this book three stars because of it innovative approach. Would recommend it to any serious football fan.

While this book has very interesting ideas and at times is very convincingly argued, the author badly needed some editing. His comparison of NFL head coaches to poker players was something of a stretch to start with, especially as he never takes into account the very different amounts of pressure, public scrutiny and high profile that coaches are under. A poker player losing loses his money while an NFL head coach risks public crucifixion in the media. But still, the idea has some validity. The only problem is he spent so long belabouring the point and going into completely unnecessary detail about poker that I found myself skipping pages because I simply don't want to a book about poker. If I did, I'd buy a book about, you know, poker. Because of the lack of editing, what looked like a fascinating book ended up being a big disappointment.

This was an interesting read which I would recommend to any NFL fans interested in the analytic and philosophical side of pro sports.

I highly recommend this Book to any Young Coach as this sparks some thinking about traditional ideas and also helps to get some insights on the statistics of the Game. I do not agree with all the ideas, but to get to this Point and figure out your own approach, that a positiv as well. And it is a good and easy read.