The Pro Football Encyclopedia: The Complete and Definitive Record of Professional Football

Rating:
Summary: Good, but there's room for improvement.
Review: I like the layout, and the information is easy to find. They seem to have done a solid job of researching every player. However, I don't see how the authors can call this "the complete and definitive record of professional football" when they leave out statistical categories like sacks, punt returns, and kickoff returns. And one more thing, the coverage of the draft is a little bare. It's nothing more than what can be found at almost any football site around draft time. Total Football, while, costing more, contains more information.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but there's room for improvement.
Review: I like the layout, and the information is easy to find. They seem to have done a solid job of researching every player. However, I don't see how the authors can call this "the complete and definitive record of professional football" when they leave out statistical categories like sacks, punt returns, and kickoff returns. And one more thing, the coverage of the draft is a little bare. It's nothing more than what can be found at almost any football site around draft time. Total Football, while, costing more, contains more information.

Rating:
Summary: A real mess.
Review: I'm glad I didn't buy this from Amazon, because I saved myself the cost of sending it back by mail. The first page I looked at contained two glaring errors. While the sheer volume of statistics is impressive, what good are they if you can't trust them? I found this book to be inaccurate and full of sloppy fact-finding. It even contradicts itself! The author is obviously quite proud of his accomplishment, which is touching, but there is no excuse for errors in statistics and other matters of record.

Rating:
Summary: Barely worth having
Review: There isn't much prior to page 1021 that I use this book for but I'm still keeping it for statistics it has other books don't. This book could be trimmed down and still have as much information. The Scoring section for instance is generally many columns of zeroes, but that's the way scoring stats are. Kickers don't score touchdowns and guys like Jerry Rice and Walter Payton don't kick field goals. Subtitled "The Complete and Definitive Record of Professional Football" is an overstatement modestly speaking. Individual kickoff and punt returns aren't here and SOME of the deceased players in the Player Register died years ago but it doesn't tell you that. And don't take by faith some of the statistics. You can't expect them to all be accurate but this book has more errors than others. It's still worth having though because it has stats other books don't (that you have to hope are correct). Stats like longest gains and longest interception returns are here and blocked punts. Also, the seasonal game scores by team are much easier reading than in books like "Total Football II". But if you have another book to refer to you should search both because unfortunately, the accuracy here doesn't rate super high so don't make any large bets based on something you saw here because a certain percentage of "facts" here (although probably a low percentage) are incorrect. For example; don't bet somebody that Ricky Bell, who played for Tampa Bay from 1977 thru 1981 is still alive. He died on November 28, 1984. I have the 1997 edition though, maybe there has been an updated version that has made corrections.

Rating:
Summary: Barely worth having
Review: There isn't much prior to page 1021 that I use this book for but I'm still keeping it for statistics it has other books don't. This book could be trimmed down and still have as much information. The Scoring section for instance is generally many columns of zeroes, but that's the way scoring stats are. Kickers don't score touchdowns and guys like Jerry Rice and Walter Payton don't kick field goals. Subtitled "The Complete and Definitive Record of Professional Football" is an overstatement modestly speaking. Individual kickoff and punt returns aren't here and SOME of the deceased players in the Player Register died years ago but it doesn't tell you that. And don't take by faith some of the statistics. You can't expect them to all be accurate but this book has more errors than others. It's still worth having though because it has stats other books don't (that you have to hope are correct). Stats like longest gains and longest interception returns are here and blocked punts. Also, the seasonal game scores by team are much easier reading than in books like "Total Football II". But if you have another book to refer to you should search both because unfortunately, the accuracy here doesn't rate super high so don't make any large bets based on something you saw here because a certain percentage of "facts" here (although probably a low percentage) are incorrect. For example; don't bet somebody that Ricky Bell, who played for Tampa Bay from 1977 thru 1981 is still alive. He died on November 28, 1984. I have the 1997 edition though, maybe there has been an updated version that has made corrections.