NFL Wide Receiver Career Stats and Aging Trends
Examining Target, Yards-Per-Attempt, and Overall Rating Data
By FiveThirtyEight [source]
About this dataset
This repository contains a comprehensive database on the careers of NFL wide receivers, examining their performance over time to offer insights into physical changes and playing style over the years. With data stretching back all the way to 1990, it reveals key changes in stats and ratings -- including age_from/age_to, trypg_change, career_try/career_ranypa/career_wowy, and bcs_rating -- that provide essential information for football fans looking to understand the history and evolution of this position in American football. This dataset is made available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License as well as MIT License with hopes of facilitating more public understanding and transparency on this subject. We invite anyone who finds it useful to share their stories by contacting us at andrei.scheinkmanfivethirtyeight.com
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How to use the dataset
In order to get started using this dataset:
- Read through the columns of data to better understand what is being measured and how it relates to an individual player's performance.
- Explore the data by filtering it in different ways (such as looking at only high rated players or seeing how older players fared compared with younger ones).
- See if there are any patterns in how certain traits (such as age) affect a player's performance over time by creating graphs or other visualizations that explore these relationships over time.
- Use these findings to draw your own conclusions about trends in NFL wide receiver aging curves or team strategies related to scouting opportunities for certain players throughout different stages of their career development journey from rookies all the way through veterans who are retiring from playing football professionally on any given year during an off-season year . . . or even beyond!
Research Ideas
- Analyzing the performance of NFL wide receivers over time by comparing their age-from and age-to stats.
- Comparing the AV rating of NFL wide receivers to their total career receiving yards per attempt.
- Comparing the career wowy stats of NFL wide receivers to their total career targets in order to assess efficiency levels across different players
Acknowledgements
If you use this dataset in your research, please credit the original authors.
Data Source
License
License: CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) - Public Domain Dedication
No Copyright - You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. See Other Information.
Columns
File: try-per-game-aging-curve.csv
| Column name |
Description |
| age_from |
Age when the career started. (Integer) |
| age_to |
Age when the career ended. (Integer) |
| trypg_change |
Change in the wide receiver's total receiving yards per game from the start to end of their career. (Float) |
File: advanced-historical.csv
| Column name |
Description |
| player_name |
Name of the NFL wide receiver. (String) |
| career_try |
Total number of career targets. (Integer) |
| career_ranypa |
Average number of receiving yards per attempt. (Float) |
| career_wowy |
Average number of yards per target. (Float) |
| bcs_rating |
Player's overall rating according to BCS system. (Integer) |
Acknowledgements
If you use this dataset in your research, please credit the original authors.
If you use this dataset in your research, please credit FiveThirtyEight.