[CoolAssPuppy]

Today is opening day for most of the NFL’s training camps. I’m a huge fan of public datasets, and my coworkers and I happened upon this dataset from the NFL. We loaded it into our company’s product (TimescaleDB) and did some number crunching. We wanted to definitively answer some questions about whether or not there is a quantifiable difference in performance when playing at Mile High Stadium (there is) or if Tyreek Hill really is as fast as he seems (he is). If you’re a football fan, there’s some good data in there. At the very least, you may settle a few bar bets. Maybe you’ll even find something to help you win your fantasy league this year.

[Cyclone_]

What's the most interesting conclusion you were able to find using the advanced data that you wouldn't be able to see with the basic stats like QBR or yards per carry?

[CoolAssPuppy]

I was suuuuper curious about the fastest player on the field (i.e., in full pads on game day), and the play-specific data includes acceleration as one of its data points. Miranda on our team (co-author of the post) dialed up a query to show the top 3, one of whom is Tyreek Hill. (The other two don’t play that much)

[CoolAssPuppy]

Should add, I’m a big fan of all the football metrics providers and follow them all religiously during the season. The NFL dataset we found isn’t as comprehensive, but it’s still really fun!

[Maven911]

What are some of the other football data providers

[CoolAssPuppy]

It’s not time-series data, but my favorite is Pro Football Focus: https://www.pff.com/subscribe

If the NFL made its data available weekly, you could probably join it with PFF data for some interesting insight. There’s a ton of power in joining time-series metrics with purely relational data.