The New Orleans Saints parted ways with Ryan Herman, the top analytics researcher in the club's personnel department, multiple sources said Wednesday.
Herman's contract was not renewed after six seasons as the Saints' head of football research and strategy.
Herman wasn't well known to the public, but he was a valued member of the football operations staff as the head of the team's in-house analytics department. He supplied weekly analytical research studies to the coaching staff on statistical trends for the league and upcoming opponent.
A graduate of Cornell, Herman joined the Saints in 2017 after seven seasons with the Miami Dolphins. He served as the Dolphins' director of football administration in 2014.
During his time in Miami, Herman worked with Saints assistant general manager Jeff Ireland, who was the Dolphins’ general manager from 2008-13.
For much of former coach Sean Payton's tenure from 2006-20, the Saints took an old-school approach to football research and were relatively slow to embrace the analytics wave that swept the NFL a little more than a decade ago. Herman was the Saints' first staffer to have analytics as the main focus of his job.
Payton recently said the analytics department with his new team, the Denver Broncos, was "on a different level" than the one he had in New Orleans.
"It’s pretty impressive, and it’s new for me in a good way," Payton said at a pre-draft news conference in April. "I’m talking about the efficiency of the process. We weren’t as far ahead (in New Orleans) when we were looking at some of these players as to being able to pick up and access the information as quickly.”
The Saints have begun interviewing candidates to fill Herman's old role on the staff, sources said.
