Jp's Xs & Os Blog

Throughout time, the draft process has become increasingly more difficult each year. Year after year teams are investigating how to boost their chances of picking up the perfect draft picks. The collection of data and other in-depth statistics has been a part of this process for years. But from what we’ve seen, we know that there’s always room for error, and that’s how AI has played a part. 

In this year’s draft, various teams discussed how AI benefited their pick selections and how they’re seeing it pay off now during rookie minicamp. Most teams said that AI cut their hours in half where it was needed in previous years. AI helped coaches and scouts analyze huge amounts of player data, like speed, strength, game film, and combine results. Instead of watching everything manually, AI systems could quickly sort through information and point out which players might be a good fit for each team.

For example, Kyle Shanahan, head coach of the San Francisco 49ers, claimed that they used ai throughout the draft process and even the night of the draft, and it helped them tremendously. He also said that final decisions and picks were made in-house, but without AI, they would’ve definitely faced a disadvantage. 

Now this is where you can apply it to yourself. Like we discussed before, to create the best mock draft or team draft, you must first know what your team is looking for and what players fit the scheme that your team runs. Using AI cuts the time needed to find this information in half, giving you more time to manually break down film, which is the most important part. The biggest challenge to making any of these boards is uncertainty, so ask questions such as “Where does my team struggle the most?” or “Break down the top 10 players in this category” then implement this into your research. Another thing that Ai can do that coaches and GMs struggle with is real-time trade decision-making. This part of the draft is almost a toss-up, especially with this year. So having AI make logical sense of potential team trades up or down is exactly what previous years have missed. Overall I can only see the use of this technology helping more and more as the years go on. The job of a scout or coach will never be replaced, but this just enhanced everyone’s draft skills tremendously.