Football Analytics with Python & R

Eric A Eager is the Head of Research, Development and Innovation at Pro Football Focus (PFF), where he uses his training as an applied mathematician to produce solutions to quantitative problems for 32 National Football League clients, over 105 NCAA Football clients and numerous media clients and contacts. He also co-hosts the PFF Forecast Podcast, which can be found on PodcastOne and iTunes and is the most popular football analytics podcast in the world since 2018. Additionally, Eager supplies odds used by Steve Kornacki on Football Night in America, the Today Show, and other programs since 2020.

He studied applied mathematics and mathematical biology at the University of Nebraska, where he wrote his PhD thesis on how stochasticity and nonlinear processes affect population dynamics. Eager spent his first six years thereafter as a professor at the University of Wisconsin - La Crosse, before transitioning to PFF full-time in 2018. He has since taught statistics and mathematics to over 10,000 students through college-level courses, the Wharton Sports Analytics and Business Initiative's Moneyball Academy, as well as an online course, "Linear Algebra for Data Science in R" with DataCamp.

Eager has been interviewed by nfl.com's Ian Rappoport about Cowboys in-game decision making and The Washington Post for commentary about sports analytics. He joined the legendary Peter King's podcast about fourth-down decisions and is a frequent guest on Cris Collinsworth's podcast.