Houston Texans doubling down on analytics with Curtis Goodwin hire
By Jair Lopez
The Houston Texans continue to make additions to their staff and are hiring Curtis Goodwin to their front office.
The Houston Texans appear to have added another staff member with Bill O’Brien, now calling the shots on building the team as the general manager. The Texans have reportedly hired Curtis Goodwin, according to ESPN Sports Analytics Writer, Seth Wilder.
Goodwin is listed as a Performance data scientist for the Houston Texans on his LinkedIn page. He has an extensive history working on the coaching staff of several sports teams and overseeing the Mathematics department at Boswell High School located in Fort Worth, Texas. It isn’t out of the norm for NFL teams to poach front office talent out of high school, but it isn’t something that occurs regularly.
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It is important to point out that Goodwin received his Masters of Science in Advanced Data Analytics at the University of North Texas in 2019. The Texans have other front-office executives that have ties to North Texas, such as Russell Joyner.
Joyner serves as the Director of Football Information System for the Texans. According to his job description with the Texans, Joyner is serving an instrumental role in the front office.
"Responsible for designing, developing, and supporting information systems for the Texans personnel department, football administration, and coaching staff."
O’Brien credited how Jack Easterby and he rely on Joyner, in particular, on helping the Texans in terms of data and analytics before the 2020 NFL draft.
"” I think about our analytics department, and I haven’t mentioned them yet. Jack and myself, we use Russell Joyner and his group quite a bit relative to everything from the prediction of an injury to the value of a trade to the value of a contract relative to the player, relative to the market.”"
O’Brien has embraced the analytical side of football in the past and mentioned how Joyner helped him by accruing data that could help him learn from his opponents in 2018.
"“There’s a lot of information nowadays with all of the different – the EXOS system that we work off of and then other systems that we have – Russell Joyner and his crew, Timmy Brog and his crew, they give us a ton of information."
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It makes sense for the Texans to double down in terms of analytics and add a member that can help the front office.