While the NFL Draft in itself is usually pretty straight forward — one player after the other gets picked — the process leading up to is quite complex.
Scouts spend more than a year diving into prospects; there are visits, meetings and workouts; every player gets tested scrupulously both athletically as well as mentally and physically. The goal is clear: to find the best players to add to a team’s roster, in any way, shape or form.
To do so, teams conduct arguably the most in-depth job interviews in all
of sports.
In the process of those, multiple data points are being collected. Height, weight, age, background, film, you name it. And out of all of the information available, decisions on draft day will have to be made. Before cards can get handed in, however, teams need to put all of it together
This is where analytics comes in. And, in the New England Patriots’ case, Max Mulitz.
Mulitz joined the Patriots last summer as personnel analytics coordinator. What this means was explained by executive vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf earlier this week.
“He’s working in conjunction with the personnel department. He’s been in all of our meetings, and he’s been great,” said Wolf.
“Every player has a profile. The thing I like, particularly, about Max is he’s not so married to the data that he can’t — we’ll retort him and say, ‘Well, what about this?’ And he has enough common sense to be like, ‘Well, yeah, that makes sense as a reason that the model gives this projection. Let me adjust it a little bit.’ So, it’s been pretty cool to kind of integrate that into our process.”
Mulitz’s background is not in football but data research. He graduated from Brown University with a degree in mathematical economics and also holds a masters in data science from George Washington University.
His first job in the NFL was an internship with the Eagles’ data research department in 2015. From there, he took his talents to Miami, where he started out as manager of coaching analytics and later as director of coaching analytics.
After eight seasons with the Dolphins, the Patriots brought Mulitz aboard in June 2025. He is now part of an analytics team also featuring vice president of football operations and strategy John Streicher, director of coaching analytics Ekene Olekanma and director of research Richard Miller.
Ten months after his arrival, Mulitz is in his first draft cycle with the team and, according to Wolf, a critical part of the operation.
One area in particular was highlighted by the team’s de facto general manager. Mulitz’s work, as he put it, “helps with outliers.”
“If he’s got a model that says the guy should be a fourth-rounder and all of us have him in the seventh round, to me that is cause for us to go back and ask questions,” Wolf said. “Why is that the case? Do we need to sit down and watch more film on this guy? To me, that’s the role. It’s to help you get as much information as you can to make the right decisions.”
