Panthers reportedly parting ways with franchise’s 1st director of football analytics

The Carolina Panthers are still reconfiguring their front office.

According to ESPN’s Seth Walder, the team is expected to part ways with Taylor Rajack—the franchise’s first-ever director of football analytics. Rajack has served in that role since 2019, when owner David Tepper introduced the football analytics department.

An MIT graduate, Rajack got his start in the NFL as an intern for the Philadelphia Eagles during the summer of 2013. He’d then join the organization on a full-time basis in 2014 and eventually step up into the assistant director of football analytics position in 2017.

Rajack, per the Panthers, was responsible for “testing theories, studying trends for coaches, and assisting in the game preparation and management process.” He also contributed to the personnel department with data-driven research, something that played a role in the team’s selection of 2023 No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young.

In a column from last May, Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated noted how Rajack helped ease concerns about Young’s ability to throw to the middle of the field.

Panthers analytics chief Taylor Rajack helped take care of that one, creating a heat map and coming up with statistics that showed Young was among college football’s most accurate quarterbacks in the short areas, over the first eight to 10 yards, over the middle, with a completion percentage to match. It showed that in the forest of linemen, and with all the traffic in the middle of the field, Young could create vision through movement and awareness, the same way Drew Brees once could.