PFR Re-Launch!
Posted by Sean on December 18, 2007
Tell your neighbors! Tell your friends! Just in time for the Playoffs we've rolled out the new site.
We hope you enjoy the new look. We're a running around squashing bugs, so don't be shy letting us know if something doesn't look right, or if you just want to say, "Huzzah!" (or "Boo!").
New Features:
All tables are now sortable. Just click on the header you want to sort.
League Registers.
Team Registers.
Player Registers for all common stats.
Complete Player stats back to the 1930's.
Some Draft Info.
More Leaderboards.
Frivolities like today's birthdays and who was born where.
More college info.
Improved Search Engine.
Please support this work and data acquisition (it isn't cheap) by Sponsoring a page.
Known issues:
The 2007 stats are incomplete for kickers, punters, linemen, etc. And don't have 100% coverage for some other stats.
Rookies don't have any personal info (hence Gaines Adams is 137 years old).
Longest pass, etc. is not set for 2007
The sponsorship system doesn't look like the new site.
Our logo stinks
We've lost the college stats register for players who haven't appeared in the NFL.
December 18th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Your first down numbers look way, WAY off. You've got the leaders most years in the 500s and 600s. The all-time record is just 398 for KC in 2004.
December 18th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
This is very different. I prefer the old version, but oh well.
December 18th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
I really like it! Makes all my football encyclopedias obsolete. Love the college stats as well. Specially the guys that never played in NFL. Thanks so much for this valuable resource!
December 18th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Awesome new look! Much easier to read and the new stats for long forgotten teams of the '30's are just fantastic!
Keep up the great work! Keep searching for those 1925 Pottsville Maroons stats!
December 19th, 2007 at 12:18 am
I really preferred the old look. The new look is too busy and has too many colors on it. There's too much stuff fighting for your attention. I like the tables but overall, it's just not doing it for me.
December 19th, 2007 at 5:45 am
Sweet! I wasn't sure when this was going to happen, and I was very excited today.
December 19th, 2007 at 8:40 am
I've been coming to this site for years and the re-make is totally awesome! This is an indispensable site.
December 19th, 2007 at 8:47 am
I love the new look. Much better. still simple, but very good sortable data. keep up the good work.
December 19th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Major improvemen.Great work! I used to be a researcher for " Classic Now" whch appeared on ESPN from August, 20005- March, 2006 and the original was a valuable resource, especially since I was the sole full- time researcher for a one hour show( 5 times a week). If you ever need a hand, give me a holler. Take care and good luck.
December 19th, 2007 at 9:23 am
Looks like the 2007 turnover and defensive stats are a little off too. League averages are wrong and so are turnover differential.
December 19th, 2007 at 9:24 am
I love the new website!!! Thanks for your work!
Merry Christmas
December 19th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Overall, I think it looks more comprehensive and once I get used to it I will probably prefer the new direction. My only complaint so far is that you can't sort the players by position like you could on the old one. I liked being able to click on wide receiver and not having to sort through the other positions to find what I wanted. Small complaint but maybe something to think about.
December 19th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
I like the old version better. The effectiveness of "simple" is often forgotten these days.
December 19th, 2007 at 1:52 pm
I've enjoyed this site for several years, but don't count me as one of the unfortunately nostalgic. All the new information is excellent and the presentation is ideal. Love the additions to the player pages, especially the leading stats in bold and the detailed leaderboards(including the rankings of historically great seasons). The best addition is the 300/100/100 listing and the ability to sort the numbers...lots of valuable info that can be found there. Three issues--the individual playoff gamelogs are no longer totaled up, which if anything does a disservice to Joe Montana who's career playoff numbers are easily the best; the yards-per-game stat is incorrect for players who had multiple teams; and weirdly included among the QB 300-yd games are ones where the QB didn't throw for 300 but had 4+ TD passes. Those are mostly nitpicks since everything else is great.
December 19th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
You've got Clint Stoerner listed as a WB on his page and WR on the Non-QB passers page. He was a QB and never caught a pass.
December 19th, 2007 at 2:45 pm
Your data and content are excellent, but from a visual design and usability standpoint this is one of the worst sites I've seen in a long time. Nothing personal, it's just downright ugly.
A nice interface on top of your current data and content platform would make for a killer site.
December 19th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
I use this site all the time, I don't go a day without researching the game of football in some way. I LOVE the new information, especially on the draft. The only thing is that the layout isn't as clean as it used to be, I used to point out this site as the example of a clean, easy to read, site. Now it's a little too busy and crowded on the front page.
December 19th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Where did the All Pro information come from? I have always wanted a source of that info, and the only one I was aware of online was the All NFL info at football.about.com. But now I think I don’t understand the difference between All Pro selections and All NFL selections... as an example, your 1991 All Pro team lists 7 CBs, but the 1991 All NFL team at about.com lists 3, and only 6 CBs made the Pro Bowl. Will you please explain this? If it turns out this is because you are including multiple All Pro teams, is there some way to distinguish them (e.g., is the AP All Pro team the "official" one)?
December 19th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Yuck! Bring back the simple, easy-to-read front page! Way too much formatting business--what you've done is a significant downgrade! Love the information, hate hate hate the new look.
December 19th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
Everything looks great; thanks for the hard work. My only question: Are the fantasy ranks still around? Maybe I'm missing them.
December 19th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Gregg, the fantasy ranks are temporarily gone. They'll be returning, probably in the offseason. Sorry for the inconvenience.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
VERY nice. Some glitches, to be sure, but
you're now perhaps the best NFL historical
stats site around.
December 20th, 2007 at 10:22 am
Bug report:
I use Firefox. When I try and print a blog entry, only the first 3 or 4 pages prints, and then the last pages are just blank.
If I try printing the exact same blog page in Internet Explorer, I have no problems.
December 20th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
I just discovered the new format and I haven't explored it much, yet. At first glance, I found it harder to locate the information I was seeking, but I suppose that's only to be expected. However, even after just a few minutes usage, it began to grow on me already. I'm impressed overall and in terms of searching out specific things, I'm sure I'll adjust fairly quickly. Mind you, I suspect you were already the best stats site around - certainly the one I most frequently used. So the improvements only take you from the best to the best again.
Nice job all!
December 20th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
I like the redesign. Maybe too might white, I know you still have other things to work on, but maybe adding some more color would be nice.
Oh how about noting Jerry Rice record 22Tds was only with 12 games during a strike season. Really not just for him but the 1987 season.
December 20th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
2 very important issues: I dont like how u now longer list individual players game by game logs (in games from 1995-present) and u no longer have playoff stats!
December 20th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Tony, we do indeed have game logs (a whole lot more of them, in fact) and playoff stats.
Just above a player's main stat table, you'll see some links labeled "GameLog Playoffs 100/300/100"
Click on those for game logs.
December 21st, 2007 at 11:13 am
I am trying to find out who were the ten fastest men in the 40 yard dash in pro football history? Without pads and with pads.
December 21st, 2007 at 12:35 pm
A couple of days ago I mentioned as an "issue" the fact that, included in the lists of QB 300-yd games, were games that a QB threw for less than 300 but had 4+ TD passes. But after exploring those gamelogs for a bunch of QBs, it's actually grown on me as a valuable reference point. It's interesting to see the various correlations between yardage and TDs among different QBs. Like how 12 of Brett Favre's 19 career 4+ TD games have come when throwing for less than 300 yards. The 300/100/100 is easily my favorite feature, and being able to sort the stats is unbelievably great!
December 21st, 2007 at 6:06 pm
I'd like to see historical stats for each team. All time rushing leaders, passing leaders etc for each team. Otherwise you're doing great.
December 22nd, 2007 at 1:17 am
looks terrific...now the best of the sports reference sites
December 22nd, 2007 at 9:20 pm
This is absolutely awesome! The new layout is an improvement on an already cool site.
December 23rd, 2007 at 4:41 am
The Gooch approves! Love the layout. Shiver me gooches!
December 23rd, 2007 at 6:34 am
You job is awesome, and the new site is so great, looks so profesional.
Thanks...!!!
Willy
December 23rd, 2007 at 12:43 pm
I like the new site. I hope you guys can get something like the play index on baseball-reference.com for this site. I also really enjoy the table sorters and the NCAA college stats stuff. Nice touching up this is a great site.
December 23rd, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Absolutely hate the new look. The old one was much easier, much simpler to navigate especially when you were flipping through all the years a team played and all that. Sorting players by position was pretty nice also, and the stats section of each team's page was nicer when rushing and receiving had their own categories. Was this really necessary?
As someone said up there, sometimes people forget the importance of simplicity, especially these days. What's next, flash? Less is always more, guys, come on.
December 23rd, 2007 at 4:28 pm
Not done browsing, but i'm really impressed by the Team breakdown pages and all the sortables. Looks nicer, too. Kudos to the good work done here.
December 23rd, 2007 at 11:42 pm
I do not like the way the NCAAF stats are now set up. I greatly prefer the old version in which you could view each college player's stats even if they never played in the NFL. Please fix this and the site will be improved.
December 24th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
My first thought was, "Where the heck am I?" I thought you guys had gone down and I was at one of those pages trying to sell me your name. Then after a brief double-take I said (literally), "Oh wow!" Light years ahead of the old text site. Well done.
December 25th, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Unreal. I am very excited, but now I feel dumb for all the work i've been putting in to my Seahawks page, most of it is right here now
December 25th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Glitch: On the main page for each year, the links for "Next season" and "Previous season" are broken.
December 26th, 2007 at 12:45 am
Awesome job! I can't even tell you how much better this site is now.
December 26th, 2007 at 3:36 am
This site is terific - you must have put a great deal of effort into this and as someone who just joined a retro league with full rosters I really appreciate the ability to research careers by draft years - its incredible. Well done and merry christmas from ENGLAND.
December 26th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Simplemente POCA MADRE!!
Great Work
December 27th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
The look isn't the prettiest, but neither was the old one. Keeping it simple is good. Keeps the load time down.
You can play with the fonts a bit. But your functionality is still best on the web. Add a vBulletin message board and you guys are set.
December 28th, 2007 at 12:08 am
On each players stat page, you should list if they are a member of the Hall of Fame(maybe I'm missing it).
December 29th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
I like the new design—using true tables instead of faux-text file layout. The sortable stuff is great and I love how I can find out the number of fumbles Cleveland Gary had in 1992!
December 29th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Sean...Awesome. You know what the NFL misses that baseball has? Play-by-play of old football games. I would kill to see the play-by-play of old NFL games. You can find the Super Bowl but that's it. None that I know from the NFLplayoff games. That would be great
December 30th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Love the redesign! it makes it so much easier to follow the stats and find things
December 30th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Love the new look and love this website! thanks for the new stats, especially the college and older ones.
January 1st, 2008 at 11:49 am
Nice !!
January 1st, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Love the site. New look, and a lot more stats for me to look at.
January 1st, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Fantastic!
Great job. I've had this site bookmarked for a couple of years. The new look is amazing.
How about a message board?? Let's talk (and argue) football!
Happy New Year.
rgj
January 2nd, 2008 at 11:56 am
Great Site!
I like the rosters/starter section!
The new look works...tons of info...makes the off-season go by faster because you can spend alot of time on here!
January 2nd, 2008 at 6:02 pm
A great site has gotten greater. I love the sortable stats; the increase in leader boards; the 100/300/100 page.
No complaints, but a Wish List:
"Single-game" leader board for things like yards rushing, etc.
Including MVPs and Superbowl MVPs in the Awards, and Honors section.
Play-offs leaderboards
Play-offs section, giving the Play-Offs for each year. I know that we can get it by going year-to-year, but there is some functionality in being able to view it all in one place.
I would bet you have some of that planned already.
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:09 pm
As a frequent user of BaseballReference.com, I was happy to see this site catch up. It's easy navigation, and it's fun just to jump from page to page.
January 3rd, 2008 at 1:34 pm
I preferred the old look. While the new look appears more stylish and professional, we don't use this site for entertainment - just reference... given that, the older site was easier to read the stats and easier to navigate
January 4th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Very sad to see there is no longer an updated downloadable database.
January 4th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Oh yeah - and in the yearly page, the pull-down for rushing, passing, etc. stats - I'd really like to see positional filters as well.
January 4th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Love the updated version of this site, BUT there's a few things missing. Maybe if you guys can include whether the teams covered against the spread and went over/under the total score for EVERY game recorded in this site, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm a sportsbook-type person, in case you guys are wondering. Thanks.
January 6th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Wow! I love it! Finally, an NFL counterpart to Sean's amazing baseball-reference.com. Bravo!!!
January 8th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Great improvements - Nice fresh look.
Are you going to include more detail on past playoffs? Box scores, play by play & stats. One source for a great deal of this info is from old Pro Football Weekly publications. We need Hub Arkush. I believe the history of pro football needs to be more relived.
January 13th, 2008 at 12:16 am
Not very thrilled with this new site. I am pretty computer savy but the old site was much easier to navigate.
Loved the section where you listed just the years and when you went to that section it gave you all the teams by year, final standings, who made the playoffs, standings, etc.
Overall the site is more pleasing to the eyes but not as easy to navigate as the original. However, I do appreciate all the time you put into this web site.
January 18th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Any reason no site out there lists forced fumbles? You list fumbles recoved, which is really a pointless stat, considering Jeff George led the league with 6 in 1994.
Greg Lloyd had something like 30-35 forced fumbles in his career (maybe more than anyone else in the past 20-30 years), yet gets overlooked every year for the Hall of Fame since no one publishes these stats.
January 18th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
I think the "new" pro-football-reference.com is a big improvement over the original. I had to buy a book: Pro-Football Encyclopedia to get players' long gains. The new PFR now has that plus punt and kick returners longest gains as well.
January 19th, 2008 at 12:45 am
I like the look but when I check players by position I don't get their stats just their name and years. Is it somewhere else on the site?
January 20th, 2008 at 6:51 am
I appreciate the effort, but I loathe the new layout. The number of pages I have to sift through to find a single piece of information has increased unnecessarily. Also, the front page is cluttered beyond belief. I come here for "reference", not entertainment.
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
ABSOLUTELY MAGNIFICENT !
January 24th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
You should add a stat page for total wins by a quarterback. That is a stat that channels like ESPN and FOX are always talking about. It would add another demension to the argument about quarterbacks.
January 26th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
The information on the stat pages has got to be broken down into more manageable chunks; the stats table for a QB has 25 columns. Not only that, but bedrock stats, like completion percentage and touchdowns, are given the same visual weight as more esoteric stats like sack and touchdown percentage. It can be very difficult to find the numbers you're looking for at a glance.
January 27th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
I'm pretty sure the Patriots had 393 first downs. I remember reading that they had 5 fewer than the Chiefs in 2004, and since they had 398, the Pats had 393.
January 29th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
I like the look and depth. I'm glad you put league-leading stats in boldface. I've been suggesting that for years to baseball-reference.
January 31st, 2008 at 8:30 pm
i dont understand how people could think that the new site is worse. The new site is very good, it's been very well done.Ive gone through it and is more informative than the old.
February 1st, 2008 at 8:15 am
I don't know if this had been touched upon, but it would be nice if there were a section for postseason games that included box scores, i.e. stats for each player, team stats and a scoring summary.
February 5th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I love this site! We have a lot of football controversy in Chicago with "Good Rex, Bad Rex" so I past the URL into blogs, chats etc. on a regular basis to back up my statistical analysis of players!! Keep up the good work!
February 11th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Why haven't all the players stats been updated for 2007 season since the season is officially over?
February 18th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Awesome website.........any chance you guys would ever add USFL stats?
keep up the great work!
USFL12
February 19th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Gene Knutson of 1956-1958 Packers died SAT 2 - 09 - 08 in Cassopolis MI according to the FEB 13th edition of the South Bend Tribune .
February 20th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
I just found this, AWESOME site, I answered like 10 questions I have had in 2 min. Keep up the great work and thanks for a great site. "How bout these Cowboys!!! " Getting #6 on 2008
February 27th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
The old site was super. Simplicity rules. But the changes you've made have made your site much more informative. Great job.
February 28th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Is there a way to see a player's draft info from his profile? I can't find it if there is.
February 28th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Nevermind. The problem is that Tony Romo was not drafted.
March 1st, 2008 at 10:44 am
Is there anyway to get sortable stats by position? Maybe I want to see who has the most INT among Linebackers or the most receptions among running back, etc...
March 6th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
I've always really enjoyed this reference site. My only suggestion is a cautionary one: please don't go the route of "How Stuff Works" and "All Music Guide" by exchanging speed and ease of use for too many graphics, videos, "bells and whistles", etc. I realize selling these page spaces helps market, pay for, and promote the site but some web-resources are best left quick, lean, and text-based. Thanks for the site.
March 7th, 2008 at 9:17 am
The old site was much easier to navigate.There is to much going on for me. Will you go back to the old way if enough people hate it ?
March 20th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Great Site, I haven't checked it out recently, only one suggestion: date of death for players