Super Bowl History at P-F-R
Posted by Doug on January 23, 2009
Brand New Super Bowl History Section at P-F-R
Fortunately for all of us, Justin Kubatko of basketball-reference.com fame is also a football fan. Like 47% of all football fans, he's a Steeler fan. So he's fired up about next weekend's big game, fired up enough that he took a short break from cataloging the exploits of Kobe and LeBron and, with a bit of help from me, put together a bunch of cool pages and tools that now constitute the most detailed and interconnected statistical Super Bowl History on the web.
Here's a quick tour...
Box Scores and gamelogs for Super Bowl I through XLII.
All-Time Leaders and Cumulative Team Standings
All Passes, Runs and Catches by every player in Super Bowl history, fully sortable.
For example: Bart Starr, Jerry Rice, Franco Harris, even The Fridge! These play-by-play logs are also linked from the player pages, just above their main stat table.
The Super Bowl Play Finder allows you to search for Super Bowl plays by a wide range of criteria. Here's just a sampling of the trivia you can find with this tool:
- Who was the receiver on the longest pass play by the Dallas Cowboys in a Super Bowl?
- Only one player has been involved (as a passer, rusher, or receiver) in four successful fourth-down conversions. Who is it?
- Can you name all Redskins to score a Super Bowl rushing TD? There are only four.
- If you define a "lead-changing TD" as one where the team went from behind (not tied) to ahead (not tied) with the TD, there are two players to throw more than one lead-changing TD in the fourth quarter. Tom Brady is one. Who is the other?
You can even use it to fashion yourself a play-by-play account of a given Super Bowl (here's XXXII, for instance). Unfortunately, these aren't as complete as they will someday be. For now, only rushes and pass plays are included. So no sacks, and no kicks. We will get those added at some point.
As always, there are likely a few bugs lurking within those pages. Let us know if you find them.
If you like these additions and want to support our ongoing work, please consider sponsoring your favorite player or team or both. User support makes improvements like this possible.
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January 23rd, 2009 at 9:01 am
I'm assuming the T/F column of the "Super Bowl Play Finder" is for TD or not. If so, all the "Yard line" numbers are backwards. It's impossible for a team to score a 45-yard TD from their own 45 yard line.
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:03 am
It looks like the query works correctly, but that "Yard Line" shows the wrong team.
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:28 am
Wow. Impressive. I look forward to the day play-by-play prior to the 1996 season is available. It is quite an accomplishment to see what this site, and your hockey cousin, have become in such a short time.
Oh, and could you have picked SB XXXI rather than SB XXXII to demonstrate the play-by-play account? (One rush play by the Pack in the second half, sheesh)
January 23rd, 2009 at 10:27 am
Will, thanks for pointing that out. The yard lines were indeed reversed, but that should be fixed now. FYI, the "T" stands for a touchdown and the "F" stands for a first down.
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Can you please remove Super Bowl XLII - It's too painful to look at those statistics.
January 23rd, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Nice work!
Think I got a bug, though...whenever I enter "0" in the Point Differential field, it's treated as either -99 (if in the first box) or +99 (in the second box).
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Jason, that bug should be fixed now. Please let me know if it's still not working the way you expect it to.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:25 pm
That one's fixed, but I think I found another one
Selected only "Play result was a TD": Yes and Team: Minnesota Vikings. Theoretically, should find me every SB TD scored by the Vikings, right?
Results page was blank (and no, the Vikings weren't that bad, I got the same result with other teams, as well).
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:30 pm
Nothing is working now!
No answers given after the choices are selected.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Sorry guys, I fixed one bug and created another. It should be OK now.
January 23rd, 2009 at 6:40 pm
Play finder is pretty cool. Unless I did the search wrong, I think I can now confirm Roethlisberger to Ward on 3rd & 28 is the longest 3rd down conversion in Super Bowl history. Always figured it would be.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Roethlisberger to Ward on 3rd & 28 is the longest 3rd down conversion in Super Bowl history.
Upon further review, I believe it is also the longest conversion for a first down regardless of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th down!
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Anthony Wright converted a 4th & 28 against the Seahawks in 2003 in a 44-41 game
4-28-BAL 35 (2:00) (Shotgun) A.Wright pass to F.Sanders to SEA 21 for 44 yards (A.Simmons).
http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/playbyplay?game_id=26436&displayPage=tab_play_by_play&season=2003&week=REG12&override=true
I only know this because I argued with a Seattle fan that the SB play wasn't a fluke; Seattle has proven to be capable of choking on very long 3rd & 4th down plays
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Doug---I want to debate your definition of a "lead changing TD". I hope we agree that another way to say this is to produce a "come from behind" win. Your definition is perfect for THE REG. SEASON-because if the game is tied in the 4th and nobody scores again ever, then NOBODY LOSES-it ends in a TIE. In the PO's, however, if the game is tied in the 4th and Team A does not score again, then THEY WILL LOSE THE GAME (because of overtime). So, conversely, if they score the only TD and win the game, it's the same as a "come from behind" win since if they hadn't scored they would have lost. The 2 situations are completely different because of OT.
January 23rd, 2009 at 9:46 pm
SPOILER--ANSWERS
It looked like there were only THREE Redskins that scored rushing TD's--I got Riggins and Timmy Smith.
Guessed Bob Hayes for the Dallas play--never would have guessed Deion in a million years.
Did get the Eli Manning one right.
January 25th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Great stuff guys
January 28th, 2009 at 4:33 am
"Only one player has been involved (as a passer, rusher, or receiver) in four successful fourth-down conversions. Who is it?"
From that link, it appears all 12 times a team has converted a 4th down via the pass, it has been in a losing effort. Interesting. You'd think at least once there'd be a big play like that that may have won a game for a team (something the Patriots might try).
January 28th, 2009 at 5:44 am
You guys should do this on a seasonal level(games 1-16 and playoffs).
January 29th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
This looked awesome! Do you have career playoff stats anywhere on the site? I thought it would be in the Leaders page, but have not been able to find anything.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
I would also like to see a page with Career Playoff Stats!
January 31st, 2009 at 9:48 am
Is there a criteria for minimum number of attempts in the super bowl career completion percentage list? If so, what is it? If not, the list is incorrect. Thanks, really like the site!
February 2nd, 2009 at 7:31 am
David T, the minimum number of career attempts is 40.
February 2nd, 2009 at 10:00 am
I'd like to be able to search for other plays like kicks and such; is that info in the database? Specifically, I came to try to find out how many times there's been a safety in the Super Bowl, as there was last night.
February 3rd, 2009 at 3:02 pm
I saw where Anon-Jero was looking forward to being able to see play by play for super bowls before 1996. At completesuperbowl.com, he has every superbowl on there with every play by play log from SB-I through SB-XLII. It is very cool for those kinds of things. The play finder on here is really cool and saves a lot of time, I've spent researching those old logs on the other site! Thanks and check out the site I mentioned for the logs.
February 5th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
There are buttons for the result of the play: First Down, Touchdown, but what about safety?
(or is that planned for when Sacks are available?)
February 6th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
when will the xliii game be included?