O'Reilly builds an AI agent to test NFL "establish the run" claims with data

O'Reilly's Monday Morning Agent series gives an AI agent a read-only tool and about 250,000 plays from five NFL seasons to test the claim "establish the run." Over the last five seasons, teams with the highest run share won 77.7% of games versus 19.2% for the lowest, but that gap mostly reflects teams already ahead running out the clock.

Limiting the data to first-half running in games within three points at halftime reversed the result, with the highest-run teams winning 46.3% of the time and the lowest winning 55.3%.