National Football League Project‑class

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Anyone good at template coding? I really like {{nfly}}, especially the ability to do ranges. But working with a lot of players from the 1940s, I end up having a lot of broken ranges due to players leaving the NFL for the military during WWII. Tony Canadeo is a good example. When he is added to a table, let's say List of Green Bay Packers in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, I have to do the following:

• {{nfly|1941|44}}, {{nfly|1946|52}} which produces "1941–44, 1946–52" (as far as I can tell, there is no way to get rid of the "19" in "1946")

what would be really nice would be a new parameter that allows two ranges, something like:

• {{nfly|1941|44|46|52|multiple=y}} which would then (hopefully) produce something "1941–44, 46–52"

Obviously there would be a few caveats to iron out, like when the range covers a change from 1999 to 2000, etc. Thoughts? Anyone able to code this? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:00, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've opened up an RM, concerning the AFL. GoodDay (talk) 15:22, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I get how it's good to disambiguate them from the baseball team, but the baseball team never had an "NFL season" in any year, so that's clear enough without the sudden and unnatural stop (unless I'm mistaken). InedibleHulk (talk) 23:22, 20 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Removing the parentheses implies the better known baseball team also played football seasons since it changes the structure of the sentence and would no longer matches the primary article. I'd oppose pretty firmly. SportingFlyer T·C 00:47, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"NFL" implies baseball just as much or little as "(NFL)". You have a point about it not matching Brooklyn Dodgers (NFL) and there certainly never was a Brooklyn Dodgers NFL; that title is out of necessity, not because it's the team's common name or the way English works. Good to hear from you, regardless. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:36, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Honestly, disambiguation probably shouldn't go in the middle of the title. It should be "19xx Brooklyn Dodgers season (NFL)". Or if no parentheticals, then it should be "19xx Brooklyn Dodgers NFL season". See WP:NCDAB. There is nothing in policy about the naming needs to match a parent article. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 00:40, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I brought this up about two or three years ago, but mixed up with other items & the result kinda went no where. This time around, it'll be less messy. Would anybody object if I shortened American Football League to AFL & National Football League to NFL in the infobox heading of their season pages? GoodDay (talk) 18:27, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense to me, since these are the common names, and putting the long-form versions in there isn't helping anyone. From MOS:INFOBOX: It should be named the common name of the article's subject but may contain the full (official) name; this does not need to match the article's Wikipedia title. I understand why various AFL article titles are naturally disambiguated with the full league name (due to Australian Football League sharing the same acronym), but someone already at an American Football League article knows they're at it, and doesn't need the infobox to browbeat them with it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:13, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't object, but note that MOS:INFOBOX only explicitly mentions the the full (longer) name as an exception to using the page title. Though I guess we can say "AFL" is the common name, but it wasnt used for disambiguation purposes. (Just trying to avoid any potential wikilawyering disputes). —Bagumba (talk) 03:30, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd support this and would be happy to help if needed. Hey man im josh (talk) 10:53, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That would be great. GoodDay (talk) 14:43, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If there's no objections? I'll begin abbreviating the AFL/NFL season infobox headings, later today. GoodDay (talk) 09:12, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well that lasted long. In order to change the infobox titles, I have to change the whole infobox itself. Has to be changed over to 'Infobox sports season', which is too much for me :( GoodDay (talk) 15:57, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@GoodDay: That was an easy fix [1] just by tweaking the infobox (assuming it's the same one used at all the season articles). Didn't have to convert it to the {{Infobox sports season}} meta-template, though there might be a good argument for doing that eventually; not sure. PS: This doesn't do anything with NFL ones; if there are some that need cleanup, point me at them.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:17, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @SMcCandlish:. I'll check over the NFL season pages. GoodDay (talk) 20:21, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Following your lead, I changed the NFL's Template infobox too. Now (after checking'em) all the AFL & NFL season pages have their infobox headings abbreviated. Next step will be the intros to the AFL season pages. But, perhaps I'll wait & tackle that at a later time. Wait & see if the infobox headings changes, will be accepted first. GoodDay (talk) 20:35, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, such trivial changes sometimes arouse surprising negative reactions (especially in sports for whatever reason). "There is no deadline", and all that.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:58, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I just added a Postseason stat table for Randy Moss and I was a little surprised that he didn't have one already lol. If you guys know/come across any other NOTABLE players that don't have a playoff stat table let me know so I can add those. HappyBoi3892 (talk) 20:15, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

looks like Terrell owens is one FreshTec843 (talk) 03:51, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was looking over T.O.'s page and noticed his records section had a possible original research warning from 2011. Then i noticed not one record has a citation (besides the one i added after correcting a record that was tied this year). So, two things: First, the first 2 records claim T.O. is the only player to score both 1 touchdown against all 32 teams and also the only player to score 2 touchdowns against all 32 teams. I researched extensively and all i came across were tweets, some stuff on reddit, and 1 article from bleacher report that said he did accomplish the 1 TD record, but said he only accomplished the 2 TD record against 31 teams. Is bleacher report considered a reliable source and how should we go about this? The second thing, it has about 10+ records saying "only player to score 3 td's in 15 seasons, only player to score 3 receiving td's in 15 seasons" and so on. Is there a consensus on adding both records? I just feel like he's too prominent a player to have such a messy page. Thanks. FreshTec843 (talk) 04:12, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

yeah, I'm going to need some reinforcements here. His page, atleast the records part, is a mess. I've already started on some of it. FreshTec843 (talk) 04:25, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

10+ years notice is ample notice to source text. If you don't feel an item is verifiable, be bold and delete it. Nobody should restore it without citing a reliable source. Personally, I treat Bleacher Report as generally unreliable, and opt for other more traditional sources, thinking it can't be that important if its just in B/R, SBNation, FanNation, or other similiar bloggy sites. I do make exceptions for certain widely-recognized industry experts on those sites on a per case basis. —Bagumba (talk) 07:10, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Be bold, I've never read that one. I like it. Thank you! FreshTec843 (talk) 13:56, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I deleted the whole mess. Team records are rarely notable enough to list out (they can be added to the prose easily enough) and the rest were all records with qualifiers (i.e. most of something by a certain age or an arbitrary baseline number). If these are notable, they can be added inline to the prose section of the article. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 14:27, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably better that way. I considered doing it myself, but wasn't sure. The article probably deserves to have a section highlighting records/achievements, but having nothing is better than what it was. FreshTec843 (talk) 14:32, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Still a week to enter the 2024 WikiCup if anyone here's interested in taking on the defending champion of the world--me! BeanieFan11 (talk) 23:35, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

BeanieFan11, best of luck to you! As always, if you are working on any WP:PACKERS articles, I would be happy to review :) Wikipedia:WikiProject Green Bay Packers/substubs#To-do has some good opportunities! I put some sources for Clyde Van Sickle on his talk page, if you are interested in that one. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:43, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'll give it a go. I had a GA promoted on January 2nd, so I should be clearing the first round without any effort. Harper J. Cole (talk) 16:42, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Harper J. Cole, the same offer goes to you. If there are any chargers articles you are working on that overlap with WP:PACKERS, I would be happy to review! John Jefferson, Lee Roy Caffey, John Hadl and Corey Linsley all come to mind. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 18:56, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Template:NFL lists This template always confused me. Its purpose is clearly a navigation aid (i.e. a navbox), yet its design and placement are wildly different from any other navbox. It's closest companion template is timeline or "This article is part of a series..." templates like {{WWII timelines}}. Yet none of those timeline or topic boxes hide all of their links like this one does, and none of them link so many articles (84 to be exact) like this one. Wouldn't this be better served as a typical navbox at the end of the article? That way all the links can be visually seen and grouped, and it frees up the space at the beginning of articles for more typical starts to articles (infobox, image, etc). Thoughts? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 17:08, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It massively overlaps {{NFL records}}. It indiscriminately groups all NFL lists together. Delete? —Bagumba (talk) 17:42, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well heck... haha. Yeah, I would support deletion. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 17:46, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I associate those "part of a series" templates with one narrative that's been broken into sections due to size, such as {{Giants history}}. This is quite a wide-ranging collection of articles. Harper J. Cole (talk) 20:42, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• I've added the navbox to show editors what is being discussed as a throw-away navbox at its deletion page. Since this is being talked about here as well I would like to urge keeping this valuable compact navigational tool. I've used it scores of times, and found it extremely useful, well ordered, and a quick way to move around the records after a Sunday's worth of games. Thanks. I've also trimmed the least applicable and tangential entries, those of "starting quarterbacks by team" which was undue for this compact quick-nav look at NFL records and brings the total down to 52 from 81. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:54, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I came across Category:Career achievements of sportspeople today and it got me thinking. Is there any reason we haven't WP:SIZESPLIT Brady's article to reduce it's size a bit (currently at 440kb)? It seems like a perfect opportunity to create List of career achievements by Tom Brady and move the "NFL career records" and "Awards and honors" sections to that page. I believe the proposed list is a topic of discussion that meets WP:GNG and WP:SIGCOV while also making sense as a split. Hey man im josh (talk) 17:05, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hey man im josh, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of career achievements by Brett Favre. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 18:07, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I see, thank you for linking me to that @Gonzo fan2007. While I do think that the proposed title would satisfy WP:LISTN, I won't go against the consensus to delete similar lists at that AfD. I felt hopeful based on List of career achievements by Kobe Bryant and the prospect of getting a Brady list up to FL. With that said, if any American football list of career achievements would survive, I do think Brady's would make the most sense and would satisfy the WP:LISTN based on the significant amount of coverage around his various records. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:14, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus changes, just giving you the history. Maybe you are right about Brady. I think recentism is a big challenge though, as may of the things that feel relevant today end up not being as much down the road. When Don Hutson retired, he owned every receiving record imaginable, firsts, totals, etc. But the enduring part, the legacy, is usually pretty easily summed up with a short paragraph. I felt the same way about Brett Favre when he retired, but most of his records either fell to the wayside or lacked relevance a few years down the road.

When I look at Tom Brady, I see a lot of superfluous stuff. Like the team records could be easily merged into the respective "list of records" articles with a few sentences in his biography summarizing the main ones. Some of them should just be removed as not "real records", such as ones with qualifiers (like "Most consecutive completions in a single Super Bowl:", the "oldest QB" records and the "most with one team" records). I don't know, I think a lot of the stats we put on Wikipedia runs afoul of WP:NOTSTATS, but I acknowledge I am in the minority on that point. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 18:27, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And I appreciate the you doing so! Yeah, there's definitely some cherry picked records in there. I'm not going to make the push for this myself, but if any player's achievements will hold up over time, it's him. Hey man im josh (talk) 19:13, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW re: Bryant, after the Favre AfD, I kicked the tires with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of career achievements by Dwyane Wade (2nd nomination), which also ended with deletion. —Bagumba (talk) 23:55, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's interesting. That one isn't particularly long but I think it reinforces the idea that the list, if someone does choose to risk it (which I'm increasingly thinking is not worth it), would need to focus pretty hard on the legitimate records that are frequently discussed. A lot of these get flooded with fan cruft and cherry picked stats. Hey man im josh (talk) 00:29, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, if you consider readable prose size, e.g. using a tool like WP:PROSESIZE, embedded lists aren't even counted. —Bagumba (talk) 23:49, 30 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good point. I was basing it on the size column and not the prose one. Hey man im josh (talk) 00:26, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

They're taking up space in the Article Alerts section. Can we do anything to resolve them? The Monday Night football one's been inactive for over three years. Harper J. Cole (talk) 13:02, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You may be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of current CFL team rosters. While about the CFL and not the NFL, the precedent this could set is probably of interest to all football editors. BeanieFan11 (talk) 20:23, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just an FYI for a thread about a user who frequents NFL-related pages: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Bears247 community ban proposal. Eagles 24/7 (C) 03:24, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just as a note, noticed this edit to Green Bay Packers draft history from back in May 2023 by Dicklyon changing all of the section headings from "NFL Draft" to "NFL draft", while also making some helpful changes to position names. Notwithstanding the larger issue with capitalization, the custom TOC is not broken because that was not updated during the edit. The headers also don't match the hatnotes under each section. I haven't reverted yet, because there are good edits (the changes to the position capitalization) that will take a lot of work to undo. That said, just want to contribute this to the overall discussion, regardless of where consensus ends up on the capitalization of "draft". « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 17:58, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, there will be a done of NFL draft cleanup either way. Dicklyon (talk) 01:20, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion Repeating d/Draft in every header seems redundant, and the context is obvious given the article subject. Simplify it to just the year.—Bagumba (talk) 02:05, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Dicklyon, part of my point was the you broke the TOC with your edit. Do you wanna fix your mistake or should I just revert your edit? « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 02:25, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed; thanks for pointing it out. I didn't go Bagumba's suggestion, but that's not a bad idea, too. Dicklyon (talk) 02:32, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Dicklyon: You down cased a number of links that should not have been, such as National Football League Draft, 1984 NFL Supplemental Draft of USFL and CFL players, and 1936 NFL Draft. I understand you have your preference, but for the time being we should be uppercasing based on the target article. I've made the changes here. Hey man im josh (talk) 02:54, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Really, even in "participated in every National Football League Draft since its inception"? And "NFL supplemental Draft"? How can those caps be justified? Also, you broke that custom TOC again. Dicklyon (talk) 05:20, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW the National Football League Draft page, was just moved to National Football League draft page. GoodDay (talk) 00:45, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We visited this in the past but for if highs or lows should be marked for negative stats (interceptions, fumbles, etc.). Now, I'd like to discuss the removal of career highs altogether. Pro Football Reference used to recognize career highs, now, no major stat website provides a career high, examples using Patrick Mahomes ESPN NFL.com Pro Football Reference. It seems like be borderline original research as well, specifically WP:SYNTH: "...do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source." Not to mention it will eliminate editors unaware we said it was ok to mark lows for negative stats. I understand enforcement will be difficult but we can't avoid doing something on here just because it's difficult (I think there might even be a policy or essay that specifically states that but I could be wrong.) And to be honest, figuring out what is a career high is not a difficult conclusion for someone to make on their own.--Rockchalk717 02:28, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd support that. The tables are a little busy at the moment. Harper J. Cole (talk) 13:56, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Identifying the career high in a table listing each year's stats is not "original research". It's second-grade math in identifying which is the larger number in a set of numbers. See WP:CALC ("Basic arithmetic, such as adding numbers, converting units, or calculating a person's age, is almost always permissible.") Cbl62 (talk) 18:23, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's why I said "borderline". But the point is we're identifying something no stat website identifies anymore and it can cause confusion with negative stats like interceptions that are bad to have a high number of, but then we turnaround and look at Patrick Mahomes rookie year (for example) he only threw one interception, which would technically be his career low (or best). Not to mention stats that have a maximum like games played/started and quarterback rating. If a quarterback has a perfect quarterback rating in week 1 and gets a season ending injury during that game, that's technically their career high. And I hinted at this in my original post but honestly identifying a career high is just flat unnecessary and I don't see the purpose. A case could be made calling career highs WP:FANCRUFT, but at the same you could make that case for the stat box in general. How many people honestly get their stats for any pro athlete from this website? I'm not pushing for the elimination of them altogether but these things are getting a little ridiculous.--Rockchalk717 21:55, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd support ditching it. Especially when there are mistakes and you think you're looking at the correct career high, when it was never updated. Whatever happens here, I do hope we could at least remove career highs for games played/started. Totally unnecessary. Bringingthewood (talk) 03:10, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do find it useful for players with long careers (e.g., Jerry Rice, Brett Favre, Walter Payton) to highlight career highs in major categories, e.g., rushing yards, passing yards, receptions, receiving yards, touchdowns, etc. Rather than eliminating these helpful forms of highlighting, perhaps we could just adopt a guideline that we don't highlight statistical categories where there's consensus that the highlighting isn't helpful (e.g., games played/started, pass interceptions thrown, etc.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Cbl62 (talk • contribs) 10:45, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with only doing specific stats is it makes it that much harder to have something to point to when these IPs and inexperienced editors decide every stat for every player needs the career high identified. If eliminated we can say "hey we decided to stop doing this", they're more likely to stop if we can say it was eliminated. Regardless of if they played 2 seasons or 20 seasons I don't see any purpose to identifying it.--Rockchalk717 05:04, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As a courtesy, I have nominated {{NFL lists}} for deletion. Thank, « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 02:31, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

History of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers seems to have lost a quarter of its content recently. I don't know anything about it, except that the edit summaries refer to removing "opinions", and this sometimes means that the editor is unaware that NPOV requires us to WP:ASSERT facts, including facts about opinions. OTOH, sometimes this sort of edit really improves an article. Someone who knows something about the team might want to take a look. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:18, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

At a glance, it looks to be trimming detail that is better suited for respective articles at Category:Tampa Bay Buccaneers seasons. These "history" pages really should be looking to franchise overviews from reliable sources for a more expert view of what is important and WP:DUE. Otherwise, it could end up being more subjective on what ends up being highlighted (or ommitted). —Bagumba (talk) 04:32, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Copying from the American Football Project talk page, as its more likely to be seen / responded to here BeanieFan11 (talk) 18:44, 5 February 2024 (UTC):[reply]
Hi, an editor, Bogens, has contacted me about the Bill Ellenbogen article. He says he is the subject of the article and would like it to be updated using information from a book, Where Have All Our Giants Gone. I don't get a sense that he is doing this for self-promotion reasons. He says he doesn't have the technical skills to add references; he has a CoI in any case. It's not something I can help with, but I thought someone involved in this project might like to have a look. Best wishes, Tacyarg (talk) 16:36, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to note how successful Wikipedia:WikiProject National Football League/Football biography cleanup has been. Of the maybe couple hundred articles improved under this project, only one has been deleted. Just goes to show you how much the old "played at least one game in the NFL" criterion was actually on point. Kudos again for Cbl62 for getting this going and I encourage every member of this project to grab a random stub every once in a while from the list and expand it. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 19:04, 6 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Now that we have a consensus to move to lowercase, I've made up this list of articles to move: User:Dicklyon/NFL Draft to downcase. Please let me know if you think it's not quite right yet. I can enlist TolBot to do the moves. Dicklyon (talk) 20:21, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When and where did that consensus happen? Jweiss11 (talk) 20:24, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Capitalization of NFL draft article titles. The RFC was announced here on 6 Jan. See the most recent archive. Dicklyon (talk) 21:45, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I thought the RFC wasn't going to be treated as a mega-RM? GoodDay (talk) 22:21, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As did I. I'm concerned that my parroting that belief may have caused some people to not get involved, which I feel terrible about. Hey man im josh (talk) 22:23, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Seems pretty sneaky. Very tricky, Dick! Jweiss11 (talk) 22:31, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]