NBC/Getty Images Cris Collinsworth, chief executive of Pro Football Focus, is an analyst for "Sunday Night Football" on NBC and a retired pro player himself.
- A football analytics company, Pro Football Focus, is developing artificial intelligence to make recommendations for player salaries to the NFL, according to the Wall Street Journal.
- So far, the AI results suggest running backs are being overpaid.
- PFF is run by Cris Collinsworth, an analyst for "Sunday Night Football" on NBC and a retired Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver.
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Soon, artificial intelligence could help decide how much NFL players should be paid.
According to the Wall Street Journal, a company called Pro Football Focus - which is run by "Sunday Night Football" analyst and former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Cris Collinsworth - has been working with all 32 NFL teams and 60-plus college football teams to analyze data on football players' performances for the teams, which is useful for both strategy and recruiting.
Now, PFF is working on a salary analysis system that determines how valuable a player is in terms of performance, and then in terms of compensation. The company is able to project what a player's value is based on both historical stats - like dropped passes that were considered catchable, or completed passes that had a high level of difficulty - and what a player's future performance might look like. Then, PFF will develop a corresponding financial measure that uses AI and machine learning to assign a dollar sign to to that player's potential, according to the Journal.
So far, PFF is finding that running backs are both overrated and overpaid, the Journal reports. Though the role has visibility and star power, PFF has found that it's less valuable considering that the success of a running back relies on the strength of the team overall as opposed to the player individually. If the NFL were to widely adopt PFF's AI for salary recommendations, that could mean pay cuts for running backs.
"Our goal is to answer the question, what wins in the NFL, whether it be at the player level or the game level," George Chahrouri, PFF Director of Research of Development, told Business Insider. "It comes down to a number game with a dollar sign in front of it at the end of the day, because if you're paying players who aren't going to win or contribute to winning football games, you're obviously going to be an unsuccessful team."
Chahrouri believes AI has brought a holistic review of players into view.
"What it has brought, in my perspective, is the ability to not over-exaggerate or under-exaggerate things, to more properly weigh the components of football players that may have been swept under the rug," Chahrouri said.