Colts hire John Park as analytics guy

The Indianapolis Colts today announced the hiring of John Park, who will be a football research/analytics guy for the team moving forward.

"Park will incorporate and utilize statistical resources to provide support in various efforts such as player evaluations, salary cap, coaching, strength and conditioning and medical," the Colts said in a statement today.

The Colts have so far been pretty quiet when it comes to the area of analytics, opting to let other teams take the public lead.  They surely have consulted analytics in the past, but now they have brought in a guy to help sort through the data when it comes to players.  Teams like the Cleveland Browns have taken a very analytics-heavy approach this offseason, and other franchises are slowly embracing the area as well.  It makes sense for the Colts to do so, as utilizing every bit of information possible should ideally lead to better results in the scouting process.

What we don't know, however, is what exact role Park will have in the Colts' organization.  A Columbia grad, he spent the past four months interning in the NFL's Player Engagement department.  With the Colts, all we know is that he was hired in a football research/analytics role, but we don't know exactly what that means.  Does he report to general manager Ryan Grigson?  Will he have any influence over the decision-making process?  What will his exact duties entail?  These are things we don't know right now, but from the surface, it at least appears as if the Colts are officially and formally entering the analytics area, as they hired a guy to handle those responsibilities.