The Indianapolis Colts hired Greg Starek as the director of football analytics, the team announced Friday.
The Colts saw two of the significant pieces of their analytics department leave this offseason. John Park joined the Dallas Cowboys and George Li followed Frank Reich to the Carolina Panthers.
Here’s what the Colts said about Starek in the press release:
Starek most recently served as a senior performance analyst for the San Francisco 49ers last season. Prior to the NFL, he was a senior data scientist for the San Francisco Giants for four years (2019-22). From 2016-19, Starek was a senior data scientist at Ezoic.
From 2010-12, he served as head coach and offensive coordinator for the Basel Meanmachine in Basel, Switzerland. Starek helped lead the Meanmachine to a national championship in his first season with the team. He was also on the coaching staff at Saint Monica Catholic (Calif.) High School for four seasons as the varsity offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach (2007, 2008) and junior varsity offensive coordinator (2004, 2006).
Starek holds a Ph.D. in biophysics (cum laude) and a master’s degree in molecular biology from the University of Basel (Switzerland). He earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from UCLA.
It will be interesting to see how much head coach Shane Steichen leans into the analytics side of the game during his first season. Regardless, they’ll have someone leading the way in that department now.