Earlier this week, the Chicago Bears gave an inside look at their process behind trading the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. Over the course of a short YouTube video, they gave us a sneak peek at their internal football conversations, including diagrams about how they evaluate players on an athletic basis.
From a football fan’s perspective purely: this was a mistake.
That’s because one of the more notable tidbits from the clip featuring general manager Ryan Poles having honest conversations with his staff was a diagram featuring an “analytics” cylinder. From an outsider’s vantage point, the diagram’s structure made it seem like everything filtered into it … for some reason. It’s not entirely clear what the Bears call “analytics” based on the chart.
It also seemed strangely out of place to just write “analytics” on a random graphic for a multi-billion dollar professional sports team. Talk about a small backfire for a move designed to give fans more clarity.
Naturally, NFL fans were practically merciless with their jokes about the Bears’ “analytics” cylinder.
The Bucket of Truth from Kids in the Hall but its just the Bears Analytics Cylinder pic.twitter.com/KAVQMVk2TK
— StartKyleOrton (@startkyIeorton) April 13, 2023
Help I’m stuck in the Bears analytics cylinder pic.twitter.com/G0oughVZZT
— Nick – Encourager (@seahawksnerd75) April 12, 2023
It’s called ‘analytics’, T. Brad Pitt and the fat kid from Superbad invented it to get a bunch old scouts canned. Now apparently the Bears are keeping it in a tube at Hallas Hall. https://t.co/0rjjZbmYKN pic.twitter.com/boQS97JXFU
— Tony Bearprano (@BearsSopranos) April 12, 2023
I am stealing the Bears Analytics can for my next Visio diagram https://t.co/TJTzseQzoH
— Will (@IAmWillMarsh) April 13, 2023
— Arif Hasan, but NFL 🏈 (@ArifHasanNFL) April 12, 2023
Are…they just assigning a percentage to these areas and calling the score analytics? https://t.co/vVBod1rGxh
— Michael Thomas (@mtsanjou887) April 13, 2023
Ryan Poles wearing Analytics Glasses and it's this but instead of the Terminator interface it zooms on Velus' Jones profile and compels Poles to draft him https://t.co/HEbSYJB2qF pic.twitter.com/cDPJNgIPZE
— Mario Puig (@ThePostingScout) April 12, 2023
Rarely seen third link for the Bijan Robinson piece. I am not currently updating this to account for the Bears Analytics Tube. https://t.co/xIU3JDIm8R
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) April 12, 2023
https://t.co/enpfUMLjHf pic.twitter.com/TB96sWRbOr
— Justis Mosqueda (#13for12) 💎🤲 (@JuMosq) April 12, 2023