R Observatory: Metrics for nflfastR version 6.0.0

Balamuta, James Joseph

doi:10.5281/zenodo.21843040

nflfastR

6.0.0Package record

Functions to Efficiently Access NFL Play by Play Data

3packages depend

30.6Kdownloads / year

71.2%test coverage

13/13flavors OK

Overview

About

Maintained by Ben BaldwinCRAN page ↗GitHub ↗Website ↗Issues ↗

A set of functions to access National Football League play-by-play data from https://www.nfl.com/.

Changes in 6.0.0

New

Added new function update_pbp_db(), a fresh approach to the database helper. (#544)

Breaking changes and deprecation

nflfastR stopped supporting the 1999 and 2000 seasons because of inconsistent data sources. Data is still available through load_pbp() but we will not fix any issues related to those old seasons anymore. It's possible to install nflfastR v5.2.0 (with pak::pak("nflverse/nflfastR@v5.2.0")) to parse those seasons if necessary. (#568)
nflfastR now loads raw play-by-play data from season based releases in the nflverse/nflverse-pbp GitHub repository. The legacy repository nflverse/nflfastR-raw is deprecated and won't update in future seasons. This means that previous nflfastR versions won't be able to download 2026+ seasons! (#589)
The legacy player stats functions calculate_player_stats*() have been deprecated in 2024 with the release of nflfastR 5.0. They are now defunct and calling them will throw an error. (#590)

Minor changes and improvements

Added "game_id" to the output calculate_stats() if summary_level == "week". (#566)
Fixed a bug where fixed_drive did not increment after a muffed blocked field goal attempt. Yes this happened in "2025_10_NO_CAR", play id 2504. (#567)
Implemented a fresh approach to compute play_type based on play_type_nfl for faster and more consistent output. (#568)
Fixed a bug where nflfastR overwrote the kickoff_attempt variable in the event of a penalty on a kickoff. (#569)
Added various definitions of 'explosive' plays to the output of calculate_stats(). It counts passes, runs, and receptions with 10+, 20+, 40+ yards gained as well as 12+ yard runs and 16+ yard passes. (#573)

Show all changes in 6.0.0Hide the rest of the changes in 6.0.0

Added several punting stats to the output of calculate_stats(). (#574)
Added overall fumble counters to the output of calculate_stats() because it was missing some edge case fumbles on offense. (#575)
The play_type variable now possibly shows "pass" or "run" on 2 point conversion plays with a post-snap penalty enforced between downs. This is different from play_type_nfl (which will show "PENALTY" in these cases). (#579)
Fixed bug where calculate_stats() counted fumble recoveries in fumble_recovery_yards_own and fumble_recovery_yards_opp instead of the corresponding yards. (#584)
Fixed bug where calculate_stats() counted some blocked punts as punt attempts that officially do not count as punt attempts. (#584)
Fixed bug where calculate_stats() overcounted first downs in some edge cases. (#587)
Updated teams_colors_logos after 2026 Titans and Rams rebrandings. (#592)
Added defensive blocked kicks and 2 point attempts to the output of calculate_stats(). (#596)
Fixed bug that led to missing pbp related team stats in calculate_stats() because an internal function did not standardize team abbreviations. (#599)

Thank you to @jdpretorius123, @JoeMarino2021, @lancejames35, @mrcaseb, @naymikm, @rayrosales66, and @TheMathNinja for their questions, feedback, and contributions towards this release.

From NEWS.md in the release

Install

R (CRAN)pak (dev)Ubuntu (r2u)Fedora (COPR)openSUSE (OBS)

install.packages("nflfastR", repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org/")

Installs the current CRAN release. Prebuilt binaries on Windows and macOS.

if (!requireNamespace("pak", quietly = TRUE))
  install.packages("pak", repos = "https://cloud.r-project.org/")
pak::pak("nflverse/nflfastR")

Development version from nflverse/nflfastR. Installs pak first if it is not already available.

Release

# enable cranapt (r2u) if it is not already set up, then install
grep -rqs r2u.stat.illinois.edu /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ \
  || curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eddelbuettel/r2u/master/inst/scripts/add_cranapt_noble.sh | sudo bash
sudo apt install -y r-cran-nflfastr

Fast Ubuntu binaries via r2u (no compilation). The cranapt setup runs once and is skipped when it is already enabled. We list this channel from recorded r2u download activity rather than from a live index of the repository, so treat it as last known rather than guaranteed.

bspm (used by r2u) also needs make: sudo apt install make

# enable the iucar/cran COPR if it is not already present, then install
ls /etc/yum.repos.d/*iucar*cran*.repo >/dev/null 2>&1 \
  || sudo dnf copr enable -y iucar/cran
sudo dnf install -y R-CRAN-nflfastR

RPMs from the iucar/cran COPR, rebuilt from CRAN.

For install.packages() integration in R, also: sudo dnf install R-CoprManager

# add the autoCRAN OBS repo (Tumbleweed) if it is missing, then install
zypper -q lr | grep -qi autoCRAN \
  || sudo zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/languages:/R:/autoCRAN/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/devel:languages:R:autoCRAN.repo
sudo zypper install -y R-nflfastR

RPMs auto-built from CRAN on openSUSE OBS (Tumbleweed). We list this channel from recorded autoCRAN download activity rather than from a live index of the repository, so treat it as last known rather than guaranteed.

Health

CRAN checks

13OK

CRAN check page ↗

Slowest check: 3.1 min · r-oldrel-windows-x86_64

Status changes

OK13 OK2026-08-05
NOTE12 OK, 1 NOTE2026-08-01
OK13 OK2026-06-09
ERROR12 OK, 1 ERROR2026-06-08
OK14 OK2026-03-10

Advisories

none known

How this is measured·How advisories are found

Documentation

In release 6.0.0

READMEYes · 657 wordsVignettes· In the repository, left out of the releaseNEWSYes · 100% structured · mentions 6.0.0Citation fileNoWebsiteYes · pkgdown

Help pages: 28 (8 internal)includes a package overview page
Examples that run: 0%21 only when donttest examples are enabled (R CMD check --as-cran)
Exported functions with examples: 74%
Documented parameters: 93%
Return-value docs: 83%
Help pages citing references: 0%

How these are measured

Downloads

30.6K

CRAN downloads in the past year

Rank #1,923 · ~84/day · ~2.6K/mo

Releases R versions

Daily download trend is not available in this view yet.

2.1K30 days

9.9K90 days

30.6K1 year

Compare downloads with other packages →

Also on254 r2u10 autocran83 c2d4u

How downloads are counted

Repository

nflverse/nflfastr ↗Organization: nflverse

548Stars

72Forks

14Open issues

1Open PRs

32Releases

1,356Commits

9Commit identities

crannflr-packagesports-analyticscran-rnflstatsnflverser

1,356 commits · Last activity 2026-09-18 · +0.6% stars, 30d

Responsiveness

How these are sampled

PRs merged (all time): 93%
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed issues: 6
Median days to close, 50 most recently updated closed PRs: 0

Stars over time

2026-07-14 · 5322026-10-16 · 548

How these are measured

PracticesBeta

16 development-tooling and community-health practices detected across 8 families in the upstream repository

Checks run against github.com/nflverse/nflfastr on 2026-10-11.

Continuous integration (2)

GitHub ActionsR CMD check workflow

The R CMD check workflow runs on Linux, macOS and Windows, and on R-devel

Governance and community (2)

Code of conduct (inherited from nflverse)Contributing guide (inherited from nflverse)

Docs source (4)

README.Rmdpkgdown

GitHub Pages site last deployed 2026-09-19 · The repository has a site deploy workflow

pkgdown site last built 2026-09-19

Reproducibility and dev environment (1)

data-raw/

Show all practicesHide 4 practices

CRAN release process (1)

cran-comments.md

Automation and maintenance (1)

Dependabot

Lint, format, editor (4)

Lint workflowAirVS CodeRStudio project

Git structural (1)

blame-ignore revs

How this is detected·Detection ruleset v3 (2026-09-26)

Dependencies

Declared dependencies

25 external dependencies (excludes base and recommended)

Installing nflfastR adds 42 packages (23 with compiled code, 47 MB of source tarballs). Heaviest: fastrmodels 16 MB, stringi 11 MB, data.table 5.7 MB.

Depends (1)

R >= 4.1.0

Imports (18)

cli curl data.table dplyr (>= 1.0.0)fastrmodels furrr future glue janitor lifecyclemgcvnflreadr progressr rlang stringr tibble tidyr xgboost

LinkingTo (0)

none

Suggests (8)

DBI duckdb gsisdecoder nflseedR purrr (>= 0.3.0)rmarkdown RSQLite testthat

Enhances (0)

none

Dependency license breakdown →

Reverse dependencies

3direct

0indirect

Imports 3

Depends, Imports or LinkingTo, most downloaded first

nfl4th nflverse NFLSimulatoR

How these are counted

Code & Tests

Datasets

People & History

People (8)

Ben Baldwin

Maintainer since 2.2.1 (2020), Author

Sebastian Carl

Author

John Edwards

Contributor · added in 4.3.0

Tan Ho

Contributor · added in 4.0.0

Contributor

Contributor

Contributor

Contributor

Releases (17)

Pick two releases to compare their code metrics.

6.0.0Latest
record
2026-09-18 · current release · diff ↗ ·
added 2 exports
most_recent_season, update_pbp_db
R
R 4.6.0 released · 2026-04-24
5.2.0
record
2026-02-07 · diff ↗ ·
added 3 exports
load_rosters, load_schedules, load_team_stats
5.1.0
record
2025-05-14 · diff ↗
R
R 4.5.0 released · 2025-04-11
5.0.0
record
2024-11-27 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
calculate_stats
R
R 4.4.0 released · 2024-04-24
4.6.1
record
2024-01-10 · diff ↗
4.6.0
record
2023-10-20 · diff ↗ ·
added 2 exports
missing_raw_pbp, save_raw_pbp
R
R 4.3.0 released · 2023-04-21
4.5.1
record
2022-12-22 · diff ↗
4.5.0
record
2022-11-05 · diff ↗ ·
added 4 exports
calculate_player_stats_def, calculate_player_stats_kicking, calculate_series_conversion_rates, nflverse_sitrep
4.4.0
record
2022-08-07 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
calculate_standings
R
R 4.2.0 released · 2022-04-22
4.3.0
record
2021-10-06 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
report
4.2.0
record
2021-08-03 · diff ↗

Show 8 earlier eventsHide 8 earlier events

R
R 4.1.0 released · 2021-05-18
4.1.0
record
2021-03-23 · diff ↗ ·
added 2 exports
calculate_player_stats, load_player_stats
4.0.0
record
2021-02-15 · diff ↗ ·
added 1 export
load_pbp
3.2.0
record
2020-11-20 · diff ↗
3.1.1
record
2020-10-22 · diff ↗ ·
added 2 exports
add_xpass, build_nflfastR_pbp
3.0.0
record
2020-09-24 · diff ↗ ·
added 2 exports
decode_player_ids, fast_scraper_roster
2.2.1
record
2020-09-01
R
R 4.0.0 released · 2020-04-24

Package metadata

First published: 2020-09-01
Total releases: 17 / 6 yrs
License: MIT + file LICENSE OSI
Minimum R: ≥ 4.1.0
Bundled data: 18 KB / 4 files
Download size: 1.1 MB

Appears in task views

Sports Analytics

Cite

Cite this package

Run in R for the authors' preferred citation:

citation("nflfastR")

Format

Baldwin, B., Carl, S., Edwards, J., Ho, T., Horowitz, M., Sharpe, L., Ventura, S., & Yurko, R. (2026). nflfastR: Functions to Efficiently Access NFL Play by Play Data (Version 6.0.0) [Computer software]. https://doi.org/10.32614/CRAN.package.nflfastR

This package has no citation file, so citation() returns this entry built from DESCRIPTION.

Cite the R Observatory

For a number measured here: a download total, a coverage figure, an archival date.

Format

APA

Balamuta, J. J. (2026). R Observatory: Metrics for nflfastR version 6.0.0 [Data set]. HJJB, LLC. Data release v2026-10-19. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21843040

From data release v2026-10-19, which the citation names so these numbers can be found later. More on citing and the projects behind them.

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