Human Behavior and Analytics in the NFL Draft
Wednesday April 22, 2026 | 5:00 to 6:00 PM
Baker Hall, Giant Eagle Auditorium
Cade Massey
University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School
Talk title: "Has the Loser's Curse Been Broken?"
Abstract: Massey & Thaler (2013) discovered that NFL teams systematically over-value top picks in the annual college draft. Their investigation provided a real-world test of overconfidence, a judgment bias believed to be pervasive but previously studied almost exclusively in the laboratory. Since then teams have had time to learn, and improved technology to deploy – have they improved? After all, it is surprising that something so consequential to teams, and watched so closely by fans, could be so wrong. We investigate the last twenty NFL drafts to determine whether, when, and where teams have improved. The good news is that valuations are more accurate, reflecting decreased compensation costs and greater emphasis on position value. The bad news is that the core challenge of identifying which prospects will actually perform best remains as elusive as ever, keeping the top picks starkly over-valued. Overall, NFL teams have shown the courage to change the things they can but neither the serenity to accept those they cannot nor, worst of all, the wisdom to know the difference.
Bio: Cade Massey is a Practice Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School where he is Faculty Director of Wharton People Lab, and co-Faculty Director of the Wharton Sports Analytics and Business Initiative. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and was on faculty at Duke and Yale before moving to Penn in 2012. Cade works at the intersection of academia and industry, bridging the gap between research and practice on decision-making, influence and negotiation. He has had long-term collaborations with Google, Merck, Doctors Without Borders and several professional sports teams. He is originally from west Texas, attended the University of Texas as an undergraduate, and now lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Cameron.
Reference: Massey, Cade, and Richard H. Thaler. "The loser's curse: Decision making and market efficiency in the National Football League draft." Management Science 59.7 (2013): 1479-1495.
Panelists
Karim Kassam
Vice President of Intelligence at Teamworks
Bio: Karim Kassam is the Vice President of Intelligence at Teamworks, the leading software platform for high-performance operations in sports. He joined Teamworks through its 2024 acquisition of Zelus Analytics, where he now integrates cutting-edge sports analytics into professional and collegiate football organizations.
Previously, Kassam established the data science team at the Pittsburgh Steelers and led R&D for the Minnesota Twins and Jacksonville Jaguars. Beyond sports, he applied predictive modeling at Legendary Entertainment for films like Godzilla and Interstellar, and helped optimize monetization at Duolingo.
Before entering the private sector, Kassam was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, focusing on decision processes and the role of emotion. He holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard University (2010).
Sam Ventura
Vice President of Hockey Strategy and Research for the Buffalo Sabres
Bio: Sam Ventura is the Vice President of Hockey Strategy and Research for the Buffalo Sabres, and an affiliated faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University’s Department of Statistics & Data Science. He also serves as an advisory board member for the University of Pittsburgh’s MS in Quantitative Economics program.
Prior to that, he was the Director of Hockey Operations and Director of Hockey Research for the Pittsburgh Penguins; a professor of Statistics at CMU, where he also received his PhD (Statistics, 2015); an assistant coach for Carnegie Mellon’s ice hockey team; and faculty advisor to the CMU Sports Analytics Club.
Sam has co-authored multiple R packages for open-source data collection and analysis, including nhlscrapr, nflscrapR, and spew, and he co-founded war-on-ice.com. He co-organizes the annual Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Conference.
This event is jointly hosted by the Department of Statistics & Data Science and the Department Social and Decision Sciences, as part of their Hilliard Family Speaker Series on Behavioral Economics.