Historical Collection of Media Guides

[PaulDeVos]

So I've been collecting media guides over the years and scraped them from the team sites as well as the InternetArchive. I have 1685 media guides.

I have a few projects I'd like to do if I am able to find more of the 1960 to Present media guides. I'm happy to share my collection, I can host them on Google Drive (~50GB currently), but also was wondering if anyone else may have some of the missing guides??

These are all digital by the way, not the actual physical copy. I own about 500 physical copies of various guides, but for this project I am primarily looking for digital copies in which I hope to convert from scanned image PDFs (aka raster image PDFs) into Text based PDFs which could be read by an LLM and other text extraction tools.

=== Missing Media Guides by Era ===
Arizona Cardinals (1920-2025) Missing 50: 1920-1952, 1957-1960, 1963-1967, 1969, 1971, 1980, 1982, 1985-1986, 2006-2007
Atlanta Falcons (1966-2025) Missing 15: 1966-1967, 1969-1973, 1975, 1977-1978, 1995, 2006-2008, 2014
Baltimore Ravens (1996-2025) Missing 1: 1996
Buffalo Bills (1960-2025) Missing 15: 1961-1962, 1965-1967, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1980, 1986, 1990, 2002-2003, 2007-2008
Carolina Panthers (1995-2025) Missing 10: 1995-2001, 2005-2006, 2008
Chicago Bears (1920-2025) Missing 25: 1920-1941, 1945-1947
Cincinnati Bengals (1968-2025) Missing 11: 1968-1969, 1973, 1976, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1995, 2006-2008
Cleveland Browns (1946-2025) Missing 33: 1946-1960, 1963-1965, 1967-1969, 1972-1973, 1975, 1977-1978, 1980, 1986-1987, 1994, 1996-1998
Denver Broncos (1960-2025) Missing 0:
Detroit Lions (1930-2025) Missing 30: 1930-1948, 1950, 1953-1954, 1957-1959, 1962, 1968, 2006, 2008, 2014
Green Bay Packers (1921-2025) Missing 43: 1921-1935, 1937-1943, 1945-1950, 1952-1956, 1958-1962, 1964, 2006-2009
Houston Oilers (1960-1998) Missing 15: 1960, 1962-1964, 1966-1967, 1969, 1971-1972, 1975, 1980, 1983, 1987-1988, 1997
Houston Texans (2002-2025) Missing 2: 2009-2010
Kansas City Chiefs (1960-2025) Missing 17: 1960, 1963-1969, 1972-1973, 1975, 1988, 1990, 2006-2008, 2012
Los Angeles Chargers (1960-1960) Missing 1: 1960
Los Angeles Raiders (1982-1994) Missing 4: 1982-1985
Los Angeles Rams (1937-2025) Missing 32: 1937-1955, 1957-1959, 1962, 1964-1968, 1970-1971, 1988, 2006
Minnesota Vikings (1961-2025) Missing 35: 1961-1973, 1975-1976, 1978, 1983-1984, 1987-1990, 1992-1998, 2000, 2002-2003, 2005-2007
New York Giants (1925-2025) Missing 42: 1925-1944, 1949-1950, 1958, 1970-1972, 1977-1978, 1980, 1982, 1985-1986, 1990, 1994, 2000-2001, 2004-2006, 2008, 2014-2015
New York Jets (1960-2025) Missing 14: 1960-1965, 1972, 1976-1977, 2000-2001, 2005-2006, 2008
Oakland Raiders (1960-1981) Missing 14: 1962-1969, 1971-1972, 1976-1978, 1980
Oakland Raiders (1995-2019) Missing 5: 1995, 2001, 2003-2005
Philadelphia Eagles (1933-2025) Missing 41: 1933-1951, 1956-1960, 1962-1964, 1966-1968, 1970, 1972, 1983, 1986, 1989-1990, 1993, 2000, 2007-2008, 2012
Pittsburgh Steelers (1933-2025) Missing 32: 1933-1944, 1946-1952, 1957-1960, 1962-1964, 1968-1969, 1971, 1975, 1977, 1982
San Diego Chargers (1961-2016) Missing 19: 1961-1965, 1967-1969, 1971-1972, 1975-1978, 1980, 1985-1986, 2004, 2006
San Francisco 49ers (1946-2025) Missing 7: 1969-1971, 1982, 1989-1990, 1992
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1976-2025) Missing 13: 1976, 1978, 1980, 1985, 1987, 1989, 1992, 1994-1997, 2003, 2006
Tennessee Titans (1999-2025) Missing 2: 2006-2007
Washington Redskins (1932-2025) Missing 14: 1932-1933, 1936-1946, 2011

Note: I have all the Miami Dolphins and Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts Media guides.

[PaulDeVos]

Bump.

Let me know if you have any of these media guides, would love to try to complete the collection. Happy to share them as well. Just let me know how we want to host them.

[ringthebell77]

The following are all available in my collection at Archive.org . https://archive.org/details/nfl-media-guides

Cleveland Browns: 1947-1949, 1951, 1953-1956, 1966; 1996-1998 was the break between the first Browns moving to Baltimore and the expansion team relaunch.
Detroit Lions: 1942, 1946-47, 1949, 1957, 2014
Green Bay Packers: 1940-41, 1946-50, 1952, 1954-1956, 1958, 1961
Houston Texans: 2009, 2010
Kansas City Chiefs: 1960, 2012
Philadelphia Eagles: 1946,
Pittsburgh Steelers: 1946, 1952
San Francisco 49ers: 1969-1971, 1982, 1989-1990, 1992
Washington Redskins: to the best of my knowledge—2011 was online only.

I have a small group of Vikings guides that I'll be adding over the next month.

Do you happen to have the Washington Redskins guide from 1964?

[Oszuscik]

The following are all available in my collection at Archive.org . https://archive.org/details/nfl-media-guides

Cleveland Browns: 1947-1949, 1951, 1953-1956, 1966; 1996-1998 was the break between the first Browns moving to Baltimore and the expansion team relaunch.
Detroit Lions: 1942, 1946-47, 1949, 1957, 2014
Green Bay Packers: 1940-41, 1946-50, 1952, 1954-1956, 1958, 1961
Houston Texans: 2009, 2010
Kansas City Chiefs: 1960, 2012
Philadelphia Eagles: 1946,
Pittsburgh Steelers: 1946, 1952
San Francisco 49ers: 1969-1971, 1982, 1989-1990, 1992
Washington Redskins: to the best of my knowledge—2011 was online only.

I have a small group of Vikings guides that I'll be adding over the next month.

Do you happen to have the Washington Redskins guide from 1964?

Let me just say that I love your collection. I check your page every day, I love seeing what you’ll post next. Sports Illustrated preview issues, the Athlon previews, so many magazines and publications that I recognize from my childhood. Thanks so much for sharing these.

[Ten Minute Ticker]

I have an entire set of 2005 media guides. Housed in custom AFC and NFC packaging.

They belonged to the Indianapolis Colts. I had a role at their training camp at the time. They were going to toss them. I asked if I could have them and they said I could.

[PaulDeVos]

That's really cool!

I love getting a few physical copies here and there, but definitely looking for the digital ones for my defensive stats project. But, I'm finding many times, e.g. the Vikings, were horrible at keeping track of stats in the media guides, but in some seasons, e.g. starting in 1984, they seem to display some career year by year stats of players so despite never mentioning it prior in a given season, they did seem to have the stats tracked somewhere.

One thought then is Gamebooks would have the stats... which they might, for some, but again, teams like the Vikings often are also missing most of the gamebooks. So left looking for OTHER sources in hopes of trying to find them.

[JohnTurney]

That's really cool!

I love getting a few physical copies here and there, but definitely looking for the digital ones for my defensive stats project. But, I'm finding many times, e.g. the Vikings, were horrible at keeping track of stats in the media guides, but in some seasons, e.g. starting in 1984, they seem to display some career year by year stats of players so despite never mentioning it prior in a given season, they did seem to have the stats tracked somewhere.

One thought then is Gamebooks would have the stats... which they might, for some, but again, teams like the Vikings often are also missing most of the gamebooks. So left looking for OTHER sources in hopes of trying to find them.

Sometimes you had to go to weekly releases for stats, some teams did both, some teams would just do weekly releases. Also, megia guides stats sometimes left things out hat had to go back and be done anyway, like 49ers FF, for example, they started putting stats in MG in 1981 but didn't add FFds until late 1980s ... inconsistent.

Then you run into the press box versus coaches stats ... it is interesting how things developed.

[PaulDeVos]

Hi John,

Yeah. It's wild to see the Vikings Media Guides have different tackles numbers for Alan Page's 1971 season (mentioned in their historic year by year section starting after their 25th season they include in "milestone" years, e.g. 30, 35...50, etc) are different than the ones on Alan Page's 1972 Topps Card, which, likely also came from the Vikings as NFL didn't keep track?

My idea is the specific numbers are relative best to the team and trying to figure out a "team context" contribution. So I envision doing a "tackle share" component. And then also working off of creating some sort of ranking of positions (e.g. general OL, OL matchups if a DL player, FB quality, etc) by teams (relative strength index) -- but that's "phase 2.. etc" (if possible) where essentially could try to get "game scores" of players from the community over time. But that's way down the road, the main thing is getting some sort of game by game or season of all the players using the same "tackle counting method" so less about who led the NFL in tackles in 1981 where Gradishar's 258 tackles vs Studwell's 230 tackles but within their own team context.

But I'd love to get started.

That said,

1) Do you know which websites [if any] have those weekly releases?
2) Do you know if the Gamebook research crew has put together any digitization of stats?

If NOT, I'm willing to try to OCR a lot of the gamebooks I found on our website:
https://www.profootballresearchers.com/ ... books.html

[PaulDeVos]

The following are all available in my collection at Archive.org . https://archive.org/details/nfl-media-guides

Cleveland Browns: 1947-1949, 1951, 1953-1956, 1966; 1996-1998 was the break between the first Browns moving to Baltimore and the expansion team relaunch.
Detroit Lions: 1942, 1946-47, 1949, 1957, 2014
Green Bay Packers: 1940-41, 1946-50, 1952, 1954-1956, 1958, 1961
Houston Texans: 2009, 2010
Kansas City Chiefs: 1960, 2012
Philadelphia Eagles: 1946,
Pittsburgh Steelers: 1946, 1952
San Francisco 49ers: 1969-1971, 1982, 1989-1990, 1992
Washington Redskins: to the best of my knowledge—2011 was online only.

I have a small group of Vikings guides that I'll be adding over the next month.

Do you happen to have the Washington Redskins guide from 1964?

Let me know if/when you upload the vikings ones, or if you'd like to send them directly to me, I'd love that. I can DM you my email.

[PaulDeVos]

The following are all available in my collection at Archive.org . https://archive.org/details/nfl-media-guides

Cleveland Browns: 1947-1949, 1951, 1953-1956, 1966; 1996-1998 was the break between the first Browns moving to Baltimore and the expansion team relaunch.
Detroit Lions: 1942, 1946-47, 1949, 1957, 2014
Green Bay Packers: 1940-41, 1946-50, 1952, 1954-1956, 1958, 1961
Houston Texans: 2009, 2010
Kansas City Chiefs: 1960, 2012
Philadelphia Eagles: 1946,
Pittsburgh Steelers: 1946, 1952
San Francisco 49ers: 1969-1971, 1982, 1989-1990, 1992
Washington Redskins: to the best of my knowledge—2011 was online only.

I have a small group of Vikings guides that I'll be adding over the next month.

Do you happen to have the Washington Redskins guide from 1964?

Unfortunately I do not have the 1964 guide. And Retroseasons misnamed their guide as they have the 1954 guide as the 1964 guide, here:
https://www.retroseasons.com/library/wa ... 964-01-01/

It appears they put the 1953 guide cover onto the 1954 guide, here:
https://www.retroseasons.com/library/wa ... 954-01-01/

It appears the actual guide cover for 1964 is here:
https://archive.org/details/nfl-media-g ... 4+redskins
https://archive.org/details/nfl-media-g ... 4+redskins

Sorry, round about way to say, I don't have 1964 Redskins media guide and it seems difficult to find as it's getting mixed up on several places with the 1954 guide.