Analytically Driven Eagles Are Trend-Setters

There is an Eagles' tint to the top-10 of the NFL when it comes to 'Relative Athletic Score.'

Eagles GM Howie Roseman / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

PHILADELPHIA - In something that is of little surprise within the industry, the Eagles have been graded as the No. 2 team in the NFL in “Relative Athletic Score."

Self-described math junkie Kent Lee Platte created RAS and attempts to grade not only current prospects against each other but also against prospects from the past in a better attempt to identify trends from a positional standpoint in athletic testing that best project success at the NFL level.

As one of the more analytically-driven teams the Eagles have been doing that kind of research behind the scenes for many years to garner any potential advantage. Alec Halaby, one of the team’s two assistant GMs, has an analytics background.

A Harvard graduate, Halaby began his NFL career as an intern in the Eagles' football operations department and slowly worked his way up to VP of football operations and strategy and ultimately assistant GM where he has been focused on player evaluation, roster management, and resource allocation, with a particular emphasis on integrating traditional and analytical methods in decision-making.

By 2022 when Andy Weidl left for Pittsburgh (more on him later) Halaby was promoted to assistant GM.

Behind the scenes, executives like Halaby have been using similar information to what Platte has brough to the general public.

An example of the work is the Eagles’ No. 22 overall pick back in April’s draft, Toledo cornerback Quinyon Mitchell, who was given a  9.75 RAS.

Mitchell had an elite 40-yard dash time (4.33) and 10- and 20-yard split times (1.54 and 2.52 respectively). His vertical leap (38 inches) and bench press (20 reps at 225) were also elite for cornerbacks.

Mitchell’s size (5-foot-11, 200 pounds) was deemed as “good” as was his broad jump of 10 feet. Overall his testing numbers ranked 56 out of 2222 cornerbacks from 1987 to 2024, comfortably among the top 3 percent over a large sample size.

In broad terms, if Mitchell fails as an NFL player, it will have little to do with his athletic profile.

The Eagles’ offseason roster has an 8.00 RAS, second only to Indianapolis at 8.39.  The No. 3 team is the New York Jets, Jacksonville is fourth, the New York Giants are No. 5 and Pittsburgh is No. 8.

The interesting part of that is each of those top-10 teams have a connection to the “Philadelphia way.” The Colts head coach is former Eagles offensive coordinator Shane Steichen, while Jets’ GM Joe Douglas was Philadelphia’s vice president of player personnel from 2016 to 2019, and former Eagles head coach Doug Pederson is now running things on field with the Jags.

The Giants' assistant GM is Brandon Brown, who ran the Eagles’ pro scouting department before getting his current job, and the Steelers’ assistant GM is Weidl, Philadelphia’s former VP of Player Personnel after Douglas.

There is more to finding players than just choosing the best athletes of course (two-time reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City is currently No. 13 in RAS and that’s on the upswing). Other perceived heavyweights or playoff contenders are even lower (Baltimore at No. 19, San Francisco at No. 23, Houston at No. 26, Buffalo at No. 29,  Cincinnati at No. 30 and the LA Rams dead last at No. 32).  

The Eagles have done one of the better jobs of marrying analytical data with traditional scouting methods, a foundation that has generally resulted in one of the NFL’s better rosters because of it. 

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