Even as the confetti rained down from the rafters of Levi’s Stadium in the aftermath of his team’s Super Bowl victory, Seattle Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald was already looking forward. Not one to rest on his laurels, Macdonald spent this National Football League offseason “chasing edges” – looking for ways that his team could improve both on and off the field now that they were the hunted instead of the hunters.

One of the ways in which Macdonald strives to make gains is through technology, capitalizing on finding opportunities to utilize the reams of data that both an NFL game and a full season produce. The result of an average play may not make an impact on the average football fan, but each snap often holds hidden depths that can make a difference between winning or losing for hungry coaching units who must make quick decisions in high-pressure situations.

“We take a lot of pride as a coaching staff to find some of those margins that we can attack, and I think when it comes to those things, those make a difference on Sundays, for sure,” Macdonald says. “Technology is a huge part of us chasing edges. It’s probably the leading catalyst behind those endeavors because that’s going to accelerate things the quickest. When you find those mechanisms that can help solve those problems, man, it speeds the whole process up.”

The NFL and Microsoft have successfully partnered for years to help teams and coaches break down the game through several technology solutions, including the AI-powered Sideline Viewing System (SVS) and the Excel-based Game Analytics Dashboard with Microsoft Copilot integration, which analysts use to provide data-backed football insights to their teams leading up to gameday and live strategic updates from the coaches booth as the action happens on the field. Additionally, Microsoft is now an official AI partner of the Seahawks.

While all teams have access to the dashboards in the coaches’ booth, each club approaches it differently. The Seahawks have seen positive results by embracing the technology and integrating their analytics staff into the team’s planning and game strategy decisions.

“The game happens really fast. Play callers are already calling their play before the (previous) play is even whistled dead,” says Seahawks director of football analysis and special situations Brian Eayrs. “It’s all about anticipating several plays ahead, because if you’re reacting to plays, you’ll never get the calls right. The analysis in real time is accelerated with the analytics dashboard. We can see things and anticipate better than we’ve ever anticipated before.”

Eayrs and Macdonald work closely to ensure that the data analysts have studied is incorporated into the Seahawks’ game plan each week. Photo by Colin Clark.

Heading into the 2026 NFL campaign, two major updates to the analytics dashboard will help reshape the way teams can access and analyze information.

First, using the latest Microsoft Copilot in Excel, the analytics assistant will allow staff to build and now edit data with AI, generating insights even faster. Second, analysts will now be able to “cast” live tables, graphs and insights from their dashboard to the SVS devices players and coaches use in the booth and on the sidelines, allowing teams to quickly receive and interpret data during the game while all working from the same source.

The Seahawks are just one of the many NFL teams looking to capitalize on the ability to create faster gameday insights. Analysts across the league are looking forward to the updated features in the Game Analytics Dashboard to help simplify communication with coaches on gameday.

“I’m really excited about the SVS screen sharing feature,” says Atlanta Falcons senior data football analyst Andy Grossman. “I think it will be a much smoother process this year. It won’t have to take as much time on the airwaves and (the coaches) will be able to visualize more things and make them more actionable. Before, they were trying to listen to a bunch of numbers that I’m reading out and trying to visualize it. Now, with the SVS, they’re going to see it right in front of them.”

“If we go back to the basic inputs of a football game, there’s the down, distance, quarter, clock, score differential, offensive personnel, defensive personnel, then the players leave the huddle and there’s a whole bunch of new variables that get added to that equation. And every play that ends, you enter a new situation with another scramble to gather information,” Eayrs says. “The analytics dashboard keeps track of a lot of that for us. Now that gives us the ability to focus on the game itself – what happens once the ball is snapped.”

Patrick Ward is the Vice President of Research and Analytics for the Seahawks. His role involves data analysis in both player acquisition and game strategy. Ward is responsible for developing several game-situation models the team utilizes. Photo by Diego Portillo/Microsoft.

Patrick Ward is the Vice President of Research and Analytics for the Seahawks. His role centers around data analysis in both player acquisition and game strategy. Ward is responsible for developing several game-situation models that help Eayrs and others understand how to react to unique score and time scenarios.

Both came into play last season for the team, in consecutive weeks. Late in a Week 15 game against the Indianapolis Colts, the Seahawks needed to figure out how to use the dwindling clock. Macdonald, along with help from Eayrs, decided to use all three timeouts to ensure they would have time if the Colts scored. They did get the ball back with 47 seconds left, enough time for a game-winning drive. Eayrs earned a game ball in the locker room for his effort – a very rare occurrence for a non-player and a sign of how key analysts’ efforts on gameday are becoming throughout the league.

“The minute that (the Colts) crossed the 50, I quickly jumped on with our assistant head coach Leslie Frazier and I said, ‘Hey, this is that situation we discussed earlier,’ ” Eayrs recalls. “We’re going to call these timeouts. And he said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ The defense, first of all, they really did the difficult job in getting the stop. I just reminded Coach Mike to call the timeout. All of the information that we had gathered up to, and in that moment, helped us to be decisive. It was a great example of the art and science of winning a close football game.”

The next week, Seattle found itself in a barnburner against the Los Angeles Rams. When the Rams took a 37-30 lead in overtime, the decision had already been made that if the Seahawks scored, they would go for 2 points and the win based on the models that Ward and his team developed. The Seahawks earned a 38-37 triumph in one of the best games of the year.

“When I think about a research and analytics or research and strategy type of department, I think about the fact that the best way to get a competitive advantage over your opponents is to learn faster than them, and there’s no shortage of data, no shortage of questions,” Ward says. “So the faster that we can produce information and answers that gets into the coaches’ hands quickly, the better.”

Exploring every edge

Eayrs earned a game ball – a rarity for non-players – for his strategic analysis during a big Seahawks victory over the Colts last season. Photo by Colin Clark.

When the Seahawks’ Super Bowl rematch with the New England Patriots kicks off the 2026 season, Eayrs, Ward and Macdonald will have crunched the numbers in preparation for the contest but also will be ready to handle the inevitable real-time adjustments thanks to Copilot and the league’s embrace of technology.

“All we’re trying to do is find the best way to make our team better on a day-to-day basis,” Macdonald says. “And so, whatever we can use information-wise to help us make better decisions, to put our players into better position to make a play or be productive, or to put more points on the scoreboard, why would you not do that?”

Many other teams feel the same way, as analysts from across the league are digging through data and using the dashboard to prepare for Week 1 and the long campaign ahead. Having results that confirm the data not only feels like a job well done but also opens the door to explore other strategic avenues using new data sources.

“Each year, I’ve just seen (the technology) grow and get better in terms of efficiency and how effective we can be using it,” Grossman says. “We have access to a lot more data this year than we did the previous year. We’re getting in rhythm with (the coaches) where they’re just so used to seeing this type of information that they don’t even have to ask the questions anymore. We can sort of anticipate what they’re wanting to see and show it to them proactively.

“When you have success where the team or the opponent is operating in the way that you anticipated based on what they’ve done in previous weeks, that adds validity to the work we’re doing and it really enables buy-in from the coaches.”

All videos by Microsoft.