Update 2021-04-30: Graphs updated with 2020 data, and a nicer font (Bariol, from Atipo Foundry) Update 2020-02-16: Graphs updated with 2019 data

What?

The NFL puts out injury data each year, covering three areas. The cover image for this post provides the headline stat of concussions, but information is also provided for ACL Tears:

and MCL Tears:

How?

A stacked bar chart in matplotlib, with a bit of post-processing to make the graphs look nice. Honestly, the biggest hassle involved in making these graphs was getting the data itself, as the NFL inexplicably only seems to embed the values as images.

Libraries / Resources

  • pandas
  • matplotlib
  • seaborn (only for figure aesthetics)
  • NFL logo colours as detailed on a site called SchemeColor

Data Sources

As noted in each image, the injury data comes directly from “Play Smart Play Safe”, the NFL’s own website for player health data. Seems a slightly inappropriate name considering they’re seeing over 200 reported concussions each year.

Code

Find it on Github