In the months before last year’s NFL Draft, Minnesota Vikings general manager Rick Spielman wanted to beef up the team’s backroom staff. The Vikings had a network of reliable scouts, but what they didn’t have was much of an analytics department.

“I was always curious about what we could do with all the data we have on players,” said Spielman. “Could we spin it in a way that would help us predict how a guy would play at the NFL level?”

...