Dallas City News

This is the third part of a series on the Cowboys’ analytics department, consisting of inside information from a variety of current and former Cowboys employees. In case you missed the first two parts, you can find those below:

Part 1
Part 2

Following the 2022 season, the Cowboys came to the conclusion that they needed a change in leadership within their analytics department. Mike McCarthy had long envisioned what his team could accomplish with an analytics department that matched the size and capacity of other organizations out there, and the feeling was that the current department was not meeting those standards.

McCarthy’s first few years with the Cowboys had come with a skeleton crew inside the analytics department relative to what other teams had. Teams that were known for their analytics use also had a large department of full-time staffers; Baltimore has six, Philadelphia has five, and the Browns boast a whopping nine people in their analytics department.

For the 2022 season, the Cowboys had just Tom Robinson. They also had Alok Pattani, though he was a consultant and not a full-time member. They also had Ryan Feder, Eric Simonelli, and Justin Rudd on the coaching staff, but they were not responsible for the kind of data science that Robinson was overseeing. This numbers problem was something the team had identified as a priority to solve in the offseason.

That led them to John Park, who had worked with the Colts for seven seasons on their analytics side of things. Prior to that, Park also briefly spent time in the NFL league office. Indianapolis had become known as one of the more analytically inclined franchises in recent years, and Park’s arrival in Dallas – as the Director of Strategic Football Operations – was widely praised in the football analytics community.

The Cowboys selected Park after a wide ranging search that featured a lengthy candidate pool. While the franchise had previously developed a poor reputation for their treatment of their analytics department, the blank canvas nature of this search seemed to open up doors that were previously closed.

The driving force behind the search was the duo of McCarthy and Will McClay, both of whom were excited about the opportunity to finally expand the department. That said, McCarthy and McClay were not the ones in charge of the actual search process, though they were heavily involved. So, too, were McCarthy’s coordinators; per one source familiar with the interview process, Dan Quinn was especially involved and took a strong interest in the hiring process.

Jerry Jones was not directly involved in the search or interview process, though he had offered his seal of approval to whomever the search team selected. Stephen Jones, on the other hand, was present throughout nearly every step of the process, though he took a backseat in some of the more intricate discussions.

According to one current staffer, the individual who functioned as the point man for the hiring process, and who was described as most responsible for honing in on Park, was Director of Football Administration and Technology Jason McKay. In addition to McKay running the search, he received a great deal of input from Vice President of Football Operations/Administration Todd Williams. In his 28th season with the team, Williams has become a close confidant of Stephen Jones, while McKay is viewed as Williams’ right hand man, in addition to playing a pivotal role managing the technology side for the analytics department. The two of them identified Park as the ideal candidate for the role early on, and they led the charge in bringing Park over from Indianapolis.

“The great thing about John,” according to a current staffer “is that he and Mike [McCarthy] speak the same language. Tom was an analytics activist. Adam too. They wanted you to know that when something went right that they helped on, it was because analytics did it and we should trust it more. Nothing wrong with that, scouts do the same thing when a guy they like performs.

But John is just different. He doesn’t even use the word analytics. He and Mike both just talk about getting an edge. With him, it’s never about the credit or how we got there. He just wants to be on the winning side, and Mike is the same way. He doesn’t care how you win, as long as you get there.”

Once Park arrived in Dallas, he set to work on building out the department. Sarah Mallepalle came from the Ravens, described by one staffer as “The key that unlocks everything else. A real star.” William Britt came over from the Steelers, where he was described as “a bright guy that was being underutilized.” Bryant Davis was hired from the Rays of the MLB, “an out of left field hire, but somebody who knows what he’s doing.” And Max Lyons, a data engineer with experience for the Eagles and Jaguars, returned to football to “set the table” for the massive scale of data sets that the department would be working with.

In the span of a month or so, Park had put together one of the largest analytics departments in the NFL. Suddenly, Dallas had the manpower to handle the workload that McCarthy wanted and needed from the group, and they were working towards a better overall infrastructure to support those processes as well.

According to multiple people in the building, Park mainly operates as the head of operations for the group, while the trio of Mallepalle, Britt, and Davis handle most of the actual data science work. One source opined that the collaborative nature Park facilitates in the department, along with the overall quality of individuals, makes it likely that each member of this department could find themselves leading their own department for another team before too long.

Park and the rest of the group spent most of the season interfacing with McCarthy and his coaching staff, with additional work being done in conjunction with McClay and the front office. “Mike and Will both desperately want the information they have, and right now they’re figuring out the best way to share them,” said one staffer.

That’s where the analytics-minded coaches have come in handy, too. Feder added game management duties this year with McCarthy in charge of calling plays, and he’s been described as “elite” and “one of the best clock guys in football right now.” Simonelli, originally assisting with special teams, now works on the defensive side, specifically assisting Dan Quinn during the season with advance scouting and offensive tendency data. And Rudd manages in-game video analysis, and was often seen standing near McCarthy during games. Park and his team have also become regulars in the booth during games, sitting behind Quinn and other coaches, offering their insights throughout the course of the game as well.

In just one offseason, the Cowboys managed to rapidly expand their analytics department and reach a size and capacity that puts them among the league’s best. Of course, there was only so much that could be accomplished in just one offseason, and the new team really only began to get into a groove as the regular season progressed, but there was a noticeable difference in how the day-to-day operations unfolded in Dallas.

“I don’t know if it’s necessarily looked this way,” a person in the scouting department said “but everyone feels more prepared for Sunday.”