The early years of professional football feature legendary players and tales of spectacular plays, but much of the record is apocryphal. Unlike professional baseball, which tracked detailed scorebooks almost from the beginning, football was not so fastidious. For instance, stats like quarterback hits and passes defended are commonplace now but only emerged in the 21st century. Even rudimentary information like “solo” tackles or fumbles didn’t enter the box score until the 1990s. For that reason, it’s hard to compare today’s players against the storied stars from 50 years ago, even with surface-level statistics.
Now, though, some of those former players will finally see a proper record of their greatness, thanks to an obsessive effort by John Turney and Nick Webster, two members of the Pro Football Research Association.