NFL Game Data: Scores & Plays (2017-2024)

Summary
This dataset contains detailed information from every game listed on the NFL's official website, https://www.nfl.com/. It aims to provide a complete record of scores along with play-by-play data across all available seasons. This dataset was created with the hope of being a valuable resource for sports analysts and data scientists interested in American football statistics. The dataset was last updated on 01/14/2024.

Data Collection
The data was collected using a custom web scraper, which is openly available for review and further development. You can access the scraper code and documentation at the following GitHub repository: https://github.com/KeoniM/NFL_Scraper.git

Dataset Features For Scores

• Season: The NFL season the game belongs to.
• Week: Specific week of the NFL season.
• GameStatus: Current state or final status of the game.
• Day: Day of the week the game was played.
• Date: Exact date (month and day) of the game.
• AwayTeam: Name of the visiting team.
• AwayRecord: Season record of the away team at the time of the game.
• AwayScore: Total points scored by the away team.
• AwayWin: Boolean indicator if the away team won the game.
• HomeTeam: Name of the home team.
• HomeRecord: Season record of the home team at the time of the game.
• HomeScore: Total points scored by the home team.
• HomeWin: Boolean indicator if the home team won the game.
• AwaySeeding: Playoff seeding of the away team, if applicable.
• HomeSeeding: Playoff seeding of the home team, if applicable.
• PostSeason: Boolean indicating whether the game is a postseason match.

Dataset Features For Plays

• Season: The NFL season the play belongs to.
• Week: Specific week of the NFL season.
• Day: Day of the week the play was attempted.
• Date: Exact date (month and day) of the play was attempted.
• AwayTeam: Name of the visiting team.
• HomeTeam: Name of the home team.
• Quarter: The quarter of the game the play was attempted.
• DriveNumber: The drive number of the quarter the play was attempted.
• TeamWithPossession: Team with possession that attempted the play.
• IsScoringDrive: Did the drive result in a score.
• PlayNumberInDrive: Play number during the drive that the play was attempted.
• IsScoringPlay: Did the play result in a score.
• PlayOutcome: Short summary of the attempted play.
• PlayDescription: In depth summary of the attempted play.
• PlayStart: Starting point on the field of the attempted play.

Follow My Data Cleaning Journey
If you're interested in following my process of refining and cleaning this dataset, check out my Google Colab notebook on GitHub, where I share ongoing updates and insights: https://github.com/KeoniM/NFL_Data_Cleaning.git. The notebook includes data wrangling techniques, code snippets, and continuous improvements, making this dataset even more valuable for analysis.

Usage Notes
This dataset is intended for academic and research purposes. Users are encouraged to attribute data to the source https://www.nfl.com/ when employing this dataset in their projects or publications.