January 28, 2026
Insights from my class Emerging Trends in Digital Advertising, and my recent work with the Yale Center for Customer Insights
November 11, 2025
Opening: The Daniel Jones Problem
In March 2023, the New York Giants extended Daniel Jones with a 4-year, $160M contract ($40M AAV). The decision sparked immediate debate because his track record painted an ambiguous picture. Through his first four seasons, Jones had accumulated respectable volume: 14,582 passing yards, 4th highest among his 2019 draft class. But his efficiency told a different story: 5.83 career ANY/A, ranking in the bottom third of starting quarterbacks. His Year 3 performance showed 3,205 yards with 6.14 ANY/A—modest improvement, but hardly elite. Both were still well below our 4,200 era-adjusted yards and 6.5 ANY/A.
November 1, 2025
Article 1 established which metrics predict quarterback contract decisions most strongly, identifying Total Yards (era-adjusted) and ANY/A (era-adjusted)¹ as the key granular and open-source predictors which balance volume production with efficiency. However, that analysis treated all career years equally, averaging performance across Years 1-3 with uniform weights. This approach optimized overall prediction accuracy but obscured a crucial dimension of organizational evaluation: teams don’t weight all career years equally when making contract decisions.