Massive Expansion of Play-by-Play and Stats on Pro Football Reference

Ever wondered how effective Jerry Rice was with Joe Montana throwing him the ball? How John Elway performed in the 4th quarter? Who the best short-yardage rusher was in the 1980s? What defense could never get off the field on 3rd down in the late '70s? No? Well, we're happy to announce that we've got answers for you anyways! We are thrilled to announce that Pro Football Reference now has play-by-play and related statistics/splits for all regular-season and playoffs games (with the exception of four minutes and 47 seconds of a single game) all the way back to 1978, which was the first season of the NFL's 16-game schedule era. This sort of comprehensive, digitized play-by-play is not available anywhere else in the public realm. We are very proud to be able to democratize this data and present it to our users.

First of all, we would like to credit Aaron Schatz of FTN Fantasy and Jeremy Snyder of Quirky Research for partnering with us on this initiative. The play-by-play was all generated by Schatz and Snyder, who have also used it to generate the sort of stats Schatz has been famous for since his Football Outsiders days (like DVOA), which can now be found at FTN.

Previous to this expansion, our play-by-play coverage only went back to 1994, so this update represents 16 new seasons of coverage and means we have nearly 50 seasons worth of play-by-play coverage and related data on Pro Football Reference now (in addition to play-by-play of every Super Bowl, which we have had for many years). We'd like to run through some of the places where this new data is apparent. Previously these statistics were stocked back to 1994 (or 1992 in the case of targets), but they now all go back to 1978:

• Box Scores
  • Play-by-play
  • Targets
  • Expected Points summary
• Player Pages
  • Targets
  • Receiving 1Ds
  • Receiving Success Rate
  • Plays dropdown leading to a Game Play Finder search
  • Advanced Splits
  • Rushing 1Ds
  • Rushing Success Rate
  • Passing 1Ds
  • Passing Success Rate
• Team Pages
  • Targets for players
  • Passing/Rushing/Receiving 1Ds for players
  • Passing/Rushing/Receiving Success Rate for players
  • Advanced team splits
  • Advanced opponent splits
• League Pages
  • League splits
  • Season Passing register
  • Season Rushing register
  • Season Receiving register
  • Season Scrimmage Stats register
  • Season Red Zone Passing stats
  • Season Red Zone rushing stats
  • Season Red Zone receiving stats
• Stathead Football
  • Game Play Finder
  • Player Split Finder
  • Team Split Finder
  • Player Season Finder
  • Player Game Finder

Some important things to note about this data:

• The numbers you can derive from this PxP line up incredibly well with official yardage and statistical totals, but it is important to remember that play-by-play is unofficial and did not always get the same corrections that game-level totals did. This is especially apparent with sacks, which receive a good deal of scrutiny in post-game review and often get corrected. Furthermore, we have elected to not use this play-by-play to generate tackle or passes defended totals. This is because official scorers at different stadiums were wildly inconsistent about handling these. Some stadiums would mark the nearest defender on any incompletion in the play-by-play, while others never did. Additionally, many stadiums only ever listed the primary tackler in the play-by-play, omitting any assists. We do have plans for expanding our tackles coverage in the future via other means, though.
• Many official scorers neglected to list intended receivers on interceptions and DPIs. Schatz and Snyder have, through video review, added these in many instances that were previously missing.
• Additionally, many scorers neglected to indicate 'forced fumbles' in the play-by-play. Schatz/Snyder have used video review to fill in many holes in the historical record here, as well.
• Speaking of fumbles, the standards for what constituted a fumble were quite different in the earlier days of this dataset. Fumbles where the runner would clearly be marked down these days are not uncommon. Same for fumbles on 'catches' that would be ruled incomplete these days. Furthermore, Schatz and Snyder discovered that official scorers used to routinely charge fumbles to the wrong player on botched handoffs. By rule, it should be charged to the player who last possessed the ball (which is almost always the QB), but many of these were charged to running backs. These days they are accurately credited to the QB.
• Schatz/Snyder have also filled in a ton of instances where the official scorer never marked a tackler. Another thing to note about the tackles is that in modern NFL play-by-play on plays with multiple tacklers, a semicolon between their names indicates that the first player gets a solo tackle and the second player gets an assist; if a comma appears between their names, then both players get an assist. In the older gamebooks no such convention existed, so it is impossible to ascertain the proper breakdown of solo/assisted tackles just from the play-by-play.
• This new dataset will allow us to calculate and display previously unreleased game and season totals for player forced fumbles and game totals for fumble recoveries.
• Convention in gamebooks during this era was to list the time on the clock at the start of a drive or for plays in the final two minutes of a half. So most plays do not have a time left on the clock associated with them.
• The final 4:47 of the September 9, 1979 Cardinals/Giants game is missing. If anyone has a gamebook that does not have these final moments of the game cut off, or has video of the game, please let us know.

We'd also like to share some of our favorite stats that we encountered in testing that this material was showing up in the right places. We hope you're able to do the same with Stathead!

• Eric Dickerson's 116 rushing first downs in 1983 are the most by any player in a single-season since at least 1978.
• Emmitt Smith's 1,034 career rushing first downs are nearly 300 more than any other player since 1978.
• Among players with at least 200 rushes in a season, Ickey Woods's 60.6% success rate is the best since at least 1978. With a minimum of 300 rushes, the leader is Bijan Robinson in 2024 (60.2%).
• Among players with at least 750 rushing attempts since 1978, Josh Allen's 60.3% success rate is the best. If you restrict the leaderboard to non-QBs, then Larry Kinnebrew's 56.5% is tops. . Among players with 2,000+ rushes, Earl Campbell (52.4%) is best.
• Jerry Rice's 2,564 career targets lead all players since 1978. Larry Fitzgerald and Tony Gonzalez are the only two other players with over 2,000 career targets during this period.
• Among players with 75+ targets in a season since 1978, John Taylor's 14.2 yards per target in 1989 are easily the most.
• Taylor's 75.0% success rate in 1989 is also the best among players with 75+ targets in a season since 1978.
• Taylor's 10.4 career yards per target is tops among all players with 500+ career targets since 1978. The three other players in double digits are all active (Justin Jefferson, A.J. Brown and George Kittle). DeSean Jackson leads all players with 1,000+ targets, followed by Stanley Morgan.
• Jerry Rice's 1,091 career receiving first downs lead all players since 1978.
• The best passing success rate by any passer with 20+ attempts in a playoff game since 1978 is Joe Montana (80.0%) against the Rams in the 1989 NFC Championship Game.
• The most rushing first downs in a game since 1978 is 15 (first done by Eric Dickerson in 1983 and last done by Bijan Robinson Week 18 of the 2024 season).
• The most yards per target in a single game by any player with 10+ targets in a game since 1978 is 30.0 by Stephone Paige in 1985 (309 yards, 10 targets, 8 receptions).
• Saquon Barkley's 1,245 rushing yards in the 2nd half of games last season is the most rushing yards in any half by a player since at least 1978.
• Earl Campbell ran for 52 1st downs on 3rd or 4th down and 3 yards or fewer to go in 1979. No other player had more than 38 (John Riggins in 1983) in a single season since 1978.
• Barry Sanders is the only player to have 1,000+ rushing yards when trailing in a season since 1978, and he did it twice.
• Saquon Barkley had 799 yards from scrimmage in the 3rd quarter of games in 2024. That is the most yards from scrimmage in any single quarter by a player since at least 1978.
• Among the 86 quarterbacks with at least 750 4th quarter pass attempts since 1978, Tony Romo has the best passer rating and Trent Dilfer has the worst.
• Among quarterbacks with 750+ pass attempts on any down since 1978, the best passer rating on any down is Patrick Mahomes on 3rd down (110.3).
• The 1989 49ers scored 23 4th quarter touchdowns, which is the most 4th quarter TDs any team has scored since at least 1978
• The 1978 Falcons averaged 8.9 (!) yards to go on 3rd down, which is the most average yards to go on 3rd down since at least 1978.
• The 1984 Dolphins scored 24 touchdowns on 3rd down, that is the most 3rd down TDs in a season since at least 1978.
• The 1998 Vikings scored 30 touchdowns with 10+ yards to go. No other team had more than 24 since at least 1978.
• The 1986 Bears allowed negative yardage to opponents who penetrated inside their 10.
• Jerry Rice receiving breakdown by passer:
  • From Steve Young: 625 receptions on 983 targets (63.6%) for 8,894 yards (9.0 y/a), 85 TD, 30 INT and a 108.9 passer rating (note this could change a little bit once we integrate some missing targets on INTs from 1994 and later)
  • From Joe Montana: 366 receptions on 654 targets (56.0%) for 6,365 yards (9.7 y/a), 55 TD, 21 INT and a 103.9 passer rating

In addition to thanking Schatz and Snyder, we would also like to thank the Professional Football Researchers Association and the late Rupert Patrick for putting together the best collection of NFL gamebooks publicly accessible (for a very cheap membership rate!) anywhere, as well as Jon Kendle at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Chris Willis at the NFL Films library and John Turney for sharing data to help get this project over the finish line. Please keep your eyes peeled for some further updates stemming from this work in the near future, as well.