Tools of the Trade—Play Index

The latest newsletter from KCSN Sports Data Scientist, Joseph Hefner.

For this week’s article, I’m previewing the nflfastR Play Index app, created and maintained by Tucker Boynton. As he says on the website, “This web application provides NFL play-by-play data without requiring any background in coding.” This website started as a place to be able to query for specific plays or sets of plays, but it’s expanded into more.

When you go to the homepage, you’ll see that there are 6 different pages available at the top of the page. First up is the “Index”. This is the play index that the app is named after. From this page, you can add tons of different filters and qualifiers, and then generate a whole list of plays that fit those filters. The table includes columns for Rank, EPA, Offense, Defense, Week, Date, Quarter, Time, Down, Distance, Description, and a link to the box scores for the game in which the play occurred.

There are so very many filters you can use for this, and it can get complicated fast. Still, once you get the hang of it, it’s very useful. For example, say you wanted to see all the plays where a safety occurred in the 2022 season. Filter the season to 2022, expand “Play Outcome Indicators” and select “Yes” in the box for the score indicator (indicating a score occurred on that play). Next, expand “Game/Drive Result” and select “Safety” from the “Drive Result” drop-down box.