Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

A very interesting little tidbit (well, interesting to me) on the John Turney/Nick Webster/Chris Willis blog (http://nflfootballjournal.blogspot.com) is a passing reference that the NFL may not renew it's contract with the Elias Sports Bureau:

Hopefully, the NFL, who is not (as we understand it) in negotiations with Elias Sports Bureau for the contract to handle the statistical matters for the NFL, will make backdating kicking and punting statistics part of the deal.

For the last few years I've thought the NFL might be headed in this direction - dropping Elias and doing the stats in-house via the Games Statistics and Information System (GSIS) since GSIS is pretty much duplicating what Elias does.

TodMaher wrote:A very interesting little tidbit (well, interesting to me) on the John Turney/Nick Webster/Chris Willis blog (http://nflfootballjournal.blogspot.com) is a passing reference that the NFL may not renew it's contract with the Elias Sports Bureau:

Hopefully, the NFL, who is not (as we understand it) in negotiations with Elias Sports Bureau for the contract to handle the statistical matters for the NFL, will make backdating kicking and punting statistics part of the deal.

For the last few years I've thought the NFL might be headed in this direction - dropping Elias and doing the stats in-house via the Games Statistics and Information System (GSIS) since GSIS is pretty much duplicating what Elias does.

What I have heard is they are in negotiations, that the contract is (was) up and it's not a certainty that there will be a renewal.

I do hope, whoever gets the contract, the NFL will ask that some things be backdated. (Selfishly because I don't want to have to do some of the things I am doing). For example, I have gotten quite a lot of the touchbacks andthe inside-the-twenty punting data for a lot fo the 1961-75 punters, but to complete it I need to go to the HOF.

Would prefer that Elias do the backdating for that. And the onside kicks and the kickoffs (touchbacks) etc... if they have all the gamebooks from 1961 to 1975 it would be easy. The old NFL manuals had the punting data, and if one guy was the only punter you could get net punting.

Some teams have done some of this already in the 1960s. In some cases there might be one punter with 65 punts and another with 2 punts. In man ycases I've found those two punts and determined if there was a return or not, so I was able to fill in a lot of the return yards on punts.

Anyway, would love for the NFL to put that in the contract for whoever gets the bid...but, like many things, it may be just a pipe dream

I don't think the backdating problem is with Elias (or whoever is or would be the official statistician) but with the NFL.

Elias will do whatever the NFL tells them to do - after all that's what they're paying them to do. The NFL simply doesn't want to do it.

It would be nice if for the 100th season (2019) and/or 100th anniversary (2020) the NFL did a complete overhaul and expansion of their records, but the NFL simply does not care.

TodMaher wrote:I don't think the backdating problem is with Elias (or whoever is or would be the official statistician) but with the NFL.

Elias will do whatever the NFL tells them to do - after all that's what they're paying them to do. The NFL simply doesn't want to do it.

It would be nice if for the 100th season (2019) and/or 100th anniversary (2020) the NFL did a complete overhaul and expansion of their records, but the NFL simply does not care.

Right, that's what I was trying to say in an unartful way. The NFL, I would hope, would put such things into the contract. As part of the bid process, but as you say, the NFL doesn't want to spend the money to do it/

Do game books include the data to recover sacks for the 60s-and 70s? If so, I wish the NFL would consider it.

fgoodwin wrote:Do game books include the data to recover sacks for the 60s-and 70s? If so, I wish the NFL would consider it.

I didn't work on the effort to build the sack database, but I would think the information is in there as I have gone thru thousands of game books looking for missed field goal distances. How many times do you have to see play-by-play text that say something to the extent of "Griese tackled for 12-yard loss by Greene" before you realize those are most likely sacks? In some cases, those might be busted running plays and not sacks, and I don't know how the guys who built the sack database split those hairs. As for the NFL considering post-dating sacks, I doubt it. The NFL isn't too keen on remembering their history and great players of the past other than the Hall of Fame induction weekend and the time around the Super Bowl. The NFL doesn't seem to be interested in reconstructing statistics, or else they would be fixing holes in their statistical record such as missed field goal distances or tackles.

fgoodwin wrote:Do game books include the data to recover sacks for the 60s-and 70s? If so, I wish the NFL would consider it.

lots of them, but there are plenty of games where that data is absent and had to be recovered by film or papers or photos or soemthing, therefore it won't ever be official enough for the NFL and I can see their point, but much has been recovered and a few are turning up here an there.