In the early 2000s, building a scouting film package in the NFL was a painstaking, manual process. For Tony Lazzaro, now the Denver Broncos’ vice president of technology and research, it meant gathering VCR tapes of a prospect’s games sometimes directly from colleges and sitting for hours in front of a television. With a notebook in hand, he would log timestamps for key plays, mark their start and end points, and pass those notes to a video specialist who would physically splice the clips together. It was time-consuming, fragmented, and heavily reliant on human effort.
Fast forward to today, and that entire workflow has been transformed. Lazzaro can now access any piece of game footage, scouting report, or player data within seconds. What once required rooms filled with tapes and handwritten notes is now condensed into a streamlined, digital ecosystem. This shift reflects a broader technological evolution across the NFL, where teams increasingly rely on sophisticated internal systems to manage scouting and decision-making.
The Denver Broncos’ in-house platform, known as the Football Information System (FIS), sits at the center of this transformation. Developed and refined by Lazzaro over 25 years, FIS acts as a unified hub connecting coaches, scouts, executives, and analysts. It consolidates virtually every piece of information the organization might need—from video clips and scouting grades to medical reports, contract details, and salary-cap data.
FIS also builds comprehensive player profiles by aggregating scouting reports, performance metrics, and advanced data such as GPS tracking. Beyond physical performance, it includes psychological evaluations and personality assessments, offering a more holistic view of each prospect. The system can even generate analytical studies based on specific queries from coaches and produce player comparisons referred to internally as “clones.”
One of FIS’s biggest advantages is accessibility. Instead of juggling multiple applications for pro scouting, college scouting, and video analysis, Broncos staff can find everything in one place. Scouts visiting colleges can instantly pull up a player’s profile and watch film without relying on external vendors. This level of integration significantly speeds up the pre-draft process and improves overall efficiency.
During draft meetings, FIS becomes an essential decision-making tool. Evaluators can instantly review a player’s full history film, reports, data points, and comparisons within a single interface. The system also incorporates coaching preferences, allowing it to filter prospects based on scheme-specific criteria defined through close collaboration between head coach Sean Payton and the analytics team.
As technology continues to evolve, systems like FIS highlight how data, speed, and integration are reshaping the way NFL teams evaluate talent and build their rosters.
