New Age Analytics

Fifteen years later, as manager of data operations for Teamworks — formerly Pro Football Focus (PFF) — he has helped create a seemingly infinite new world of analytics to transform football evaluations at the college and pro level.

When Claassen was promoted to full-time data analyst in 2014, he became just the 10th full-time employee at PFF. During Claassen’s career at PFF, the analytics force grew to 170 full-time and 700 part-time employees before its acquisition by Teamworks this spring. He well remembers his early days spending countless hours breaking down game film/video for college and NFL teams.

“Back then, putting in 70 to 80 hours a week was normal,” said Claassen. “At my peak, I had six monitors in my office for collecting game films. And our small staff had to chart about 50-60 college games per week, which added up to more than 800 games by our deadline of the Super Bowl. The weekly amount has increased over the years with the biggest weeks exceeding 130 games to analyze.”

Initially, Claassen’s play charting simply focused on the basics of the passing game — who was on the field, where they lined up routes ran against what type of defensive coverage, etc. From there, he quickly moved into player grading and later even managed that process. In recent years, he has transitioned to leading special projects and helping to build new data processes.

“We now have about 400 data points on every play we collect — broken down into a bunch of different processes,” said Claassen. “The data depth we provide teams, as well as the tools we give coaches to filter specific plays, which are then linked to video for immediate viewing, is all really quite extraordinary.”

Claassen says Simpson played a big role in where he is today. His college internships with the Des Moines Menace soccer club and the Iowa Energy basketball team were among the most pivotal experiences.

“Those internships set me up pretty well, as did my classes. My computer information systems class, for example, was a good foray into visualizing and working with data. And, of course, my Simpson football background definitely helped open the door at PFF.”