Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

All,

As Chairman of the Linescore Committee, I am making a request for volunteers to work on a large but significant project. It is to generate game summaries for the seasons 2008-2019. As you probably know the NFL stopped putting summaries in the Record & Fact books, beginning with the 2009 book. This was my source for seasons prior to 2008. If you haven't seen the linescores on the Members Only section, a summary is a short 4-5 sentence paragraph that describes the most important events of a game.

What I can provide a volunteer is the game write-up from ESPN's website (I've copied all of them into Word files), spreadsheets with 100-yard rushers & receivers and 300-yard passers, and a short guide on how to write a summary. I can also provide feedback with tips/suggestions. So far I have a couple of volunteers, but I need several more as there are some 3,200 games to do. I know some members have projects or special interests they are involved with. But if you are interested in a big project and can dedicate a lot of time and effort, please send me a private message.

Gary Selby has been the gentleman who currently writes and maintains the comprehensive summaries that go up in the Members Only section at the end of each NFL season. As PFRA members know, these Linescore Project summaries contain the boxscores of every single game played in a season as well as statistical summaries of the season, and most of the season summaries contain narratives about what happened in every game... but not all, and that's where the need for volunteer writers comes in. Gary's proposal to the Board of Directors during this past week was to complete the description of the first 100 seasons and publish it in time for the celebration of the National Football League's centennial in 2020. We were impressed with his presentation and we approved it unanimously.

Several of us have already signed on as volunteers; in the opening stages, game accounts will be provided to the volunteer and the task is to write a concise summary that tackles the most important points, in 50 words or less. Gary's the overseer on the project, but feel free to contact any of us on the Board. Gary can be reached through the private message function on the Forum, or by e-mail at wendell02@roadrunner.com ; my e-mail is mrkl4d@harlanonline.net ;

Looks like four people have signed on to Linescore 2020 so far, a good result in such a short time-- thanks for your inquiries and responses. If you're a published author, here's a chance to get something more for your bibliography-- and if you've never been published, and you missed out on the chance to be one of the authors for the PFRA book about the 1958 Baltimore Colts, this is your opportunity to have your name on our next publication. Again, wendell02@roadrunner.com is the e-mail for any questions that you might have.