Cole Jacobson

NFL Staff Updates: Chargers, Bills, Saints

Here are a few recent staffing updates to front offices in the NFL:

  • According to ESPN’s Seth Walder, the Chargers are losing a member of its analytics staff. Senior analyst Alex Stern will be leaving the team in order to take a position with “Teamworks Intelligence (formerly Zelus Analytics), a major third-party sports analytics company with NFL clients.” After being named a finalist in the 2019 Big Data Bowl and concluding an analytics and research internship with the University of Virginia, Stern joined the Chargers as a research analyst in 2021. He was promoted to senior analyst last June.
  • Where one team loses an analyst, another team gains one. Walker reported this week that the Bills are hiring a new football research assistant. Cole Jacobson makes his NFL debut in the position after years of doing freelance, seasonal, and part-time work with NFL Media, MLB Media, FOX Sports, Stats Perform, and Championship Analytics. He and his team were named finalists in this year’s Big Data Bowl.
  • Lastly, the Saints have hired an operations admin out of Boise State in Garrett Holle to serve as their new director of rehabilitation, per Nick Underhill of NewOrleans.Football. Holle heads to New Orleans after a quick rise through the collegiate ranks. Following an internship at Arizona State in 2023, Holle joined Boise State in the same season, rising from assistant athletic trainer and rehabilitation coordinator to assistant athletic director of sports performance and health and wellness in 2024. He fills the role vacated by Johnathan Gress, who left for the University of Oklahoma after six years in the position with the Saints.