Nice article on Tony Khan:
Tony Khan, Shad's son, using passion for analytics, football to help build Jaguars
By Ryan O'Halloran
12 Sep 2015, 08:19 PM
Urged by his friends, Tony Khan appeared on a hometown radio station to provide analysis and a prediction on the 1997 Super Bowl. He was in the eighth grade.
Filling in for a mentor who was home with the flu, Khan coached the University of Illinois Laboratory School to a 62-20 win over Buckley Christ Lutheran.
He was a high school senior.
And, trusted by his father to carry out an ambitious plan to utilize statistics to aid in building a franchise that has sunk to the bottom of the NFL, Khan joined the Jaguars in July 2012.
He was 29 years old.
Khan is full of words, actions and objectives. They flow out of his mouth every day in the bowels of EverBank Field, where he is the Jaguars senior vice president of football administration and technology. Its up to everybody else, his friends, family, colleagues and employees, to keep up.
But what is Khan about? We know he joined the Jaguars, who open the season Sunday against Carolina, after his father, Shad, bought the team for $760 million in January 2012. He was tasked with starting an analytics department that explores the numbers to gain a competitive edge.
Little else, though, is known about Shad and Ann Khans only son.
Aside from occasionally posting tweets to provide context for how the Jaguars are building their team, Khan has stayed in the shadows. Until last week.
During a three-hour interview with the Times-Union, his first with a Jacksonville media outlet since his family bought the Jaguars, Khan provided a glimpse into his life and the career he loves.
Its the best, being able to work on so many different things I love, Khan says. Theres nothing else Id rather be doing.
HES THE OWNER
Two examples of what Khan, 32, does: Last year, he supplied coach Gus Bradley with data on how explosive plays increase the chances of producing a touchdown drive and also the importance of winning defensively on first down.
And during the final day of the draft in May, general manager Dave Caldwell told Khan to find a possible undrafted player who could return kickoffs.
Khan and analyst Kellen Blumberg delivered Auburns Corey Grant, who had the top Speed Score of any running back available (122.1), which incorporated a players 40-yard dash time (Grants was 4.26 seconds) with his weight (205 pounds). Big-and-fast is better than small-and-fast.
Khan reached out to Grants agent to gauge his interest and convince his client to sign. Grant signed, made the team and will return kickoffs against Carolina.
Tony understands what we want and he communicates his [findings] really well, Caldwell says. For us, we try to be clear with what our needs are, but we also dont limit him. We say, These are our specific needs, but feel free to bring anything to light that you feel were not addressing. Its a great system of checks and balances.
The majority of Khans role with the Jaguars is compiling detailed reports for Bradley and his staff early in a game week. But he also dabbles in personnel evaluation, which led him to scouting Grant.
Yes, Khan is a part of ownership. But no, people with the Jaguars say, he doesnt flex those figurative muscles.
I tell the team, This is the owner and hes got great information, Bradley says.
Says Mike Stoeber, the Jaguars assistant director of football technology: Yes, he is the owner, but when he comes into a room, hes there to work. Hes the first one to say, Ill do that. Ill jump in, when something needs to be done. This is his passion and you get excited to work with anybody who can dive into it like he does.
Khan admits, I couldnt have walked in and started a department like this had I not been my fathers son. But I think we have one of the best analytics departments in the NFL and we utilize it from top to bottom as well as anybody.
A key characteristic for any manager: Knowing what you dont know. Khan leans on the Jaguars coaching staff to learn more about strategy and concepts. He has met with general managers like the Houston Rockets Daryl Morey and the Oakland Athletics Billy Beane to absorb their expertise in team-building and how they use the numbers. The goal is always finding out how to improve.
Tony is a very savvy business person and he has a very clear vision, says Rafe Anderson, president of TruMedia Networks, the company Khan bought in February and provides its 50 clients in various sports with analytics. He has a unique ability to lay out his objectives in a way that is easy to understand.
BASKETBALL FIRST LOVE
Khans work ethic was developed at his tuition-free, had-to-test-well-to-be-admitted high school that is state funded and had the nations highest average ACT score during his graduation year. At the same time, his love of sports entertainment (pro wrestling) and team sports (basketball and football) was ignited. His favorite athletes were Magic Johnson and Brett Favre, his favorite teams Illinois football and basketball.
We let him absorb everything he could, Ann Khan recalls in a rare interview. Eventually, he found basketball and he knew everything he was there to know about basketball. And he would go everywhere talking about statistics.
Admittedly non-athletic, Khan became the varsity basketball team statistician when he was 13 years old and gradually worked his way up to become Joel Beesleys assistant coach while still in school. Khan would set up the equipment, keep the statistics, fax reports to the newspaper, observe future opponents, run the scout team in practice and coach the summer league team (13-16 career record).
And then there was the game he filled in for Beesley.
His claim to fame, Beesley says with a laugh. I was getting sicker as the day went on and we were playing a very, very small school. I showed up to the gym and said, Tony, youre in charge.
The junior varsity coach also sat on the bench for an adult presence, but Khan ran the team.
It was amazing, Ann Khan says. They could have forfeited the game, but the players rallied around him.
Says Tony: Anybody would have won that game. We had a much better team and they were just getting their program started. If we would have played without a coach, we would have still beaten them handily.
Beesley thought so much of Khans contributions, he created the Tony Khan Most Dedicated Award and made him the first recipient.
A great sense of accomplishment, Shad Khan recalls of the award. It was memorable for [the family] because we still talk about it.
Tony passed on a scholarship offer from Vanderbilt to study journalism to attend the hometown University of Illinois. He thought he wanted to coach when he joined the Illinis mens basketball program as a manager the summer before his freshman year. But he pivoted in another direction after only a few months.
I would go to a class to check which players were attending and I was like, Hey, Ive got my own classes to go to, he recalls. I couldve stuck with it, but I wasnt patient enough to wait four years to join a staff or go from a manager to a graduate assistant.
Khan graduated with a finance degree and began working for his father.
EYE ON THE NFL
Khans first job was as general manager for BioAlternative, one of his fathers companies. Based in Covington, Ind., it concentrates on biodiesel research, development and production.
What I definitely took from that experience is being really, really process-oriented, Khan says. We were doing something nobody had ever done - a lot of people had tried to make biodiesel from used cooking oils, but not in the volume we were trying to make it and especially using the process we were trying to use. It was experimental and we had to make changes to the process and improvise along the way.
It was a lesson to me to be extremely diligent and really detailed-oriented.
As Tony earned management experience at BioAlternative, Shad Khan was displaying his own diligence in pursuing ownership of the St. Louis Rams. The process peaked in February 2010 when Khan struck an agreement to buy 60 percent of the Rams. But then-minority owner Stan Kroenke exercised his right to match the offer and assume full ownership.
Even though his father was denied ownership of the Rams, pro football statistics in general and the work of the Football Outsiders group in particular became Tonys obsession. The Football Outsiders almanacs have a permanent home on the bookshelves of his Jacksonville office and the 2010 edition has lost its back cover and looks like its been through a car wash.
When we were working on the Rams sale, I was focused heavily on football and I never took my eye off of that, Khan says. I wanted to transition out of BioAlternative and was ready to [enter the NFL]. The last couple of years there, I was working on football stuff most of the day and was ready to start a [statistics] department.
Because he had been vetted by the NFL, Shads deal with the Jaguars developed quickly. And when the sale was approved, he saw the value in starting an analytics department.
He saw this was the way to go and the work I was doing was different than what most teams were doing, Tony says. When we went to see the Rams and then the Jaguars, it was clear it was something they were lacking.
PASSION BECOMES CAREER
Khan started work with the Jaguars in July 2012 and everything about the experience, relocating to a new city, entering the world of pro football, being the owners son, meeting resistance from holdover employees, was different and difficult.
There was definitely a fair amount of push back, recalls Daniel Adler, who was the Jaguars director of football research in 2012-13 and is now a consultant while he attends Harvard. It was certainly frustrating for Tony that they owned the team and he couldnt flip a switch and get everybody on board. A trying year, for sure.
Khan had an instant connection with director of football technology Mike Perkins, and Stoeber, who joined the team in 2011.
I tried to do my best to teach him as much as I could about the business, Perkins says. But he was beyond his years as far as knowing how things worked and we just hit it off with a football connection. Hes a guy who knows the game and knows the history of the game.
Says Stoeber: I loved working with Tony from Day One and he was a perfect fit from Day One. Just being around Tony added a new sense of energy and importance to some of the things we were doing because he has such a passion for the game. Not only does he study the statistics, he studies the game and why the pieces fit together and how they fit together.
Khan says 2012 was used to build a staff and foundation for how analytics would be used. Following the 2-14 season, Shad Khan fired general manager Gene Smith and interviewed four candidates. Tony was present and involved in every interview and each general manager and head-coaching candidate was told of the Jaguars commitment to analytics.
I was very open to it, Bradley recalls. I heard Jacksonville was very good in analytics and it was something I liked and felt could be a huge deal if we could take it to the next step.
During the game-plan process, Khan and his staff build a report that he presents to Bradley. The Jaguars keep the details of the reports confidential, but it includes opponents play-calling tendencies, a self-scout of the Jaguars play-calling and clock management.
Dave and Gus are open to collaboration; its not like theyre making all of their decisions based on analytics, Khan says. Ive tried to build a relationship with them to gain their trust and every year, I think theyve bought in a little more and given me more responsibility.
Says Bradley: Its been really good. He may bring up 10-15 things and Ill go back and look at them and say, These things have value, these things maybe not so much. But Ill explain why. Weve gotten more and more on the same page as weve gone on.
Caldwell and Bradleys offices are about 50 steps from Khans two-room office. The main room is non-descript save for shelves filled with football instruction manuals and books written by or about Don Shula, Lou Holtz, Vince Lombardi, Mike Ditka and Pat Riley, among others.
The adjacent room has a conference table with several leather chairs facing a giant television screen that allows Khan to chart game video.
For anybody around him who likes football, Bradleys term of endearment is, Theyre all about ball. Khan certainly qualifies.
I love the draft process. I love the regular season. I love preparing for the games, he says. I just love football.
Says Bradley: What I love about him is just like we want players who love football and are passionate about football, we want [non-players] who also love football. Tony has an unbelievable passion for analytics and thats awesome.
