With how last season went and the uncertain future facing GM Ryan Poles, it felt like some kind of shakeup might be coming at Halas Hall. Sure enough, it arrived in the most interesting place. Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune revealed the team was parting ways with Krithi Chandrakasan. Poles hired him as the team’s Director of Football Analytics in 2022. He’d previously served as a data scientist in Kansas City for three years, so there was obvious familiarity. It appears Poles didn’t get the results he was hoping for.
This feels like a possible turnover is coming to the Bears analytics department. It isn’t a big shock. While it is difficult to determine what role that section of the front office has played in the team’s roster building, it’s hard to believe it was positive when you see graphics like the one below.
Considering both Claypool and Jones were massive misfires by the Bears, it is easy to see why Poles might think their analytics approach needs serious revamping.
Ryan Poles may seek somebody with more experience this time.
One thing about Chandrakasan that stood out was how short his time in the NFL had been. He spent time in 2016 with Jacksonville as an intern before leaving for other jobs outside football for two years. He joined Kansas City in 2019 before making his way to Chicago in 2022. That meant he had only four years of analytics experience in the NFL before taking the Bears job. It appears Poles may have put too much on his plate before he was ready. Either that or team president Kevin Warren would like to bring in one of his own people.
Subscribe to the BFR Youtube channel and ride shotgun with Dave and Ficky as they break down Bears football like nobody else.
Maybe the Bears promoted Football Research Analyst Ryan Hubley to the position or Andrea Wright, who is their Football Administration and Analytics Coordinator. She just got promoted last year, indicating she is seen as a rising star in that department. Barring that, expect Ryan Poles to go hunting for help outside the organization. It will be interesting to see who he might try luring to Chicago.
🤷🏼♂️ this graphic looks accurate. These are athletic composite scores. If Poles was using this to determine who would be the best football players then add another reason to the list of reasons he should have been fired.
@Dr. Steven Sallie —
Nerds leading Clowns often result in won-loss records of 15-36 (294).
It’s amazing how that works!
There will always be some slippage between concept in the theoretical world of our minds and the empirical indictors meant to represent the concept in the world of our senses. Those indictors will also have measurement errors needing to be understood and addressed. So I’ve heard.
If Poles and Krithi are going to look and act like nerds, then they at least must do their jobs well. Otherwise: out!
Poles must also be inept in assessing qualitative factors–that would primarily be on him, not necessarily on any data scientist.