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throws a player intercepted and deflected, divided by the number
of pass attempts thrown in his direction. By using this formula
and reviewing college players entering the draft, the Jaguars
selected Connecticut cornerback Dwayne Gratz in the third
round in 2013. Cornerback is a premium NFL position in which
most starters are first-round picks, but Gratz was a starter in
each of his first two NFL seasons. Using new stats to dig deeper
is the reason most teams are embracing the practice.
Pro golfer Brandt Snedeker explained the power of analytics
for him on the PGA Tour. He entered the 2012 British Open
having missed the cut in all three of his previous Open starts.
His stats, however, said it should be otherwise. Mark Horton,
an English numbers wizard, crunched Snedeker’s data and
developed a plan.
“[Horton] said, ‘Let me break it down for you,’” Snedeker
told golf.com. “He told me that I don’t drive it particularly
straight, but I drive it okay. I don’t hit a bunch of greens, but
I hit them okay. ‘But you putt really freakin’ good—you’re one
of the best I’ve ever seen. So you know what you need to do this
week? Just hit the danged green!’”
That sounds like simple advice, but for Snedeker, it was
seeing it spelled out in numbers that made the difference. He
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