NFL coaches brace for AI takeover on the sideline
Las Vegas Raiders hired Ryan Paganetti as “Head Coach Research Specialist” — aka their AI coordinator. He says AI will shape football strategy soon and might even replace some coaching roles.
Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator Zac Robinson admits he’s “a little scared” about discussing game plans with an AI assistant, but sees its potential. 
Raiders head coach Pete Carroll, a big AI believer, calls it “a wide-open domain” and won’t ignore the tech.
“I don’t think when I was hired the idea was, ‘This is our AI guy,’ but there is no doubt whatsoever that I am going to be using AI every single day,” Paganetti said. “And probably in increasingly larger amounts every month that goes by.”
“It almost might be a blockbuster moment where some coaches, their roles are replaced entirely,” Paganetti added.
Teams are already using AI for injury predictions and game prep, but the next big jump is AI-assisted playcalling and real-time adjustments. Sony’s Hawk-Eye 8K cameras coming this season will feed even more data into AI systems.
AI experts at MIT and startups like SumerSports are building models that “watch” film to identify coverages and tendencies with nearly 90% accuracy. But coaches aren’t always quick to embrace the math.
“Anyone who knew any math at all knew they were behaving stupidly, and yet they continued to do it,” MIT’s John Guttag said, recalling resistance to early fourth-down analytics.
With guesswork cut and efficiency up, assistants like Falcons passing game coordinator T.J. Yates see AI as a way to ditch all-nighters.
“If you’re not using it, it’s dumb, because it’s there for us,” Yates said.
Teams keep AI work under wraps. Paganetti adds most analytics efforts remain secretive.
“There’s still an extreme level of secrecy … We know what the scouts do on the other team. We know what the coaches do on the other teams: They coach. But when it comes to the actual contribution of the analytics department of another team, it’s really open-ended.”
Expect an AI arms race behind the scenes as NFL teams aim to outsmart rivals with smarter machines.
