One of my biggest pet peeves is the Monday morning quarterback, the person who second-guesses every coaching decision after the fact. In The Monday Morning Agent , we’re building one that actually checks the data.

Every other Monday, I’ll take an argument NFL fans can’t stop having and hand it to an AI agent. We’ll use about a quarter-million plays from five complete seasons of public nflverse data , plus the current season as it unfolds. Each of our eight episodes will give the agent another capability. By the finale, it’ll run the desk unattended, and we’ll check what it investigated and what it correctly refused to answer.

We’ll start with “You have to establish the run.” I want the agent to explain what that claim means and what evidence would support it.

Define the claim before querying the data

“Establish the run” can mean that running early pays off late, wearing down the defense, or setting up play action. These are very different claims and they need different data.…