LeSean McCoy Yards in 2013 200 short about nfldb

[BurntSushi]

Ah wow! I was almost about to say, "Sorry, but the data is sometimes inaccurate." Instead, I dug a little bit. I'll share my process in case someone else finds it useful.

First, I wanted to reproduce it, so I ran nflstats LeSean McCoy (from nflcmd):

[andrew@Liger ~] nflstats LeSean McCoy
Player matched: LeSean McCoy (PHI, RB)
  Week  W/L    Date   OPP  R Att  R Yds  Y/Att  R TDs  WR Rec  WR Tar  WR Yds  Y/Att  WR TDs  F Lost  KR Yds  KR TDs  PR Yds  PR TDs
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     1    W   Sep 9  @WAS     31    184    5.9      1       1       1       5    5.0       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     2    L  Sep 15    SD     11     53    4.8      0       5       6     114   22.8       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     3    L  Sep 19    KC     20    158    7.9      1       0       1       0    0.0       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     4    L  Sep 29  @DEN     16     73    4.6      0       1       3      21   21.0       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     5    W   Oct 6  @NYG     20     46    2.3      1       6       8      46    7.7       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     6    W  Oct 13   @TB     25    116    4.6      0       2       2      55   27.5       0       1       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     7    L  Oct 20   DAL     18     55    3.1      0       6       7      26    4.3       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     8    L  Oct 27   NYG     15     48    3.2      0       4       5      18    4.5       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     9    W   Nov 3  @OAK     12     44    3.7      0       4       4      36    9.0       1       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    10    W  Nov 10   @GB     25    155    6.2      0       1       1       6    6.0       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    11    W  Nov 17   WAS     20     77    3.9      2       4       4      73   18.2       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    13    W   Dec 1   ARI     19     79    4.2      0       5       6      36    7.2       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    14    W   Dec 8   DET     29    217    7.5      2       1       1       4    4.0       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    15    L  Dec 15  @MIN      8     38    4.8      0       5       7      68   13.6       0       0       0       0       0       0                                                           
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                                           
    16    W  Dec 22   CHI      6     37    6.2      1       2       2       9    4.5       0       0       0       0       0       0                                                           
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                                           
    17    W  Dec 29  @DAL      4     27    6.8      0       0       1       0    0.0       0       0       0       0       0       0                                                           
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                                           
     -    -       -     -    279   1407    5.0      8      47      59     517   11.0       1       1       0       0       0       0

Then I took a look at McCoy's game log, and indeed, weeks 16 and 17 are way off.

The next step is to investigate whether nflgame has the same error:

import nflgame

mccoy = nflgame.find('LeSean McCoy')[0]
stats = mccoy.stats(2013)
print stats.rushing_yds

Output: 1607.

Yikes! I'm not sure what happened, but maybe something happened while updating. (I keep it running while the games are playing for live updates.) Once the game is considered "finished", no more updates are made. So if the update failed while the game was playing---and only updated for the first quarter, for example---then nfldb would eventually consider that game finished. Therefore, nfldb-update wouldn't try to update it again.

Luckily, the fix is simple. Just blow away week 16 and week 17 from the database and rebuild it with nfldb-update:

[andrew@Liger ~] psql nfldb -c "DELETE FROM game WHERE (season_year, season_type) = (2013, 'Regular') AND week IN (16, 17);"
DELETE 32
[andrew@Liger ~] nfldb-update
...

(N.B. This will automatically delete all drives, plays and stats associated with those games because of cascading foreign key constraints.)

And now nflstats LeSean McCoy shows the correct output:

[andrew@Liger ~] nflstats LeSean McCoy
Player matched: LeSean McCoy (PHI, RB)
  Week  W/L    Date   OPP  R Att  R Yds  Y/Att  R TDs  WR Rec  WR Tar  WR Yds  Y/Att  WR TDs  F Lost  KR Yds  KR TDs  PR Yds  PR TDs
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     1    W   Sep 9  @WAS     31    184    5.9      1       1       1       5    5.0       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     2    L  Sep 15    SD     11     53    4.8      0       5       6     114   22.8       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     3    L  Sep 19    KC     20    158    7.9      1       0       1       0    0.0       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     4    L  Sep 29  @DEN     16     73    4.6      0       1       3      21   21.0       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     5    W   Oct 6  @NYG     20     46    2.3      1       6       8      46    7.7       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     6    W  Oct 13   @TB     25    116    4.6      0       2       2      55   27.5       0       1       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     7    L  Oct 20   DAL     18     55    3.1      0       6       7      26    4.3       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     8    L  Oct 27   NYG     15     48    3.2      0       4       5      18    4.5       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     9    W   Nov 3  @OAK     12     44    3.7      0       4       4      36    9.0       1       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    10    W  Nov 10   @GB     25    155    6.2      0       1       1       6    6.0       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    11    W  Nov 17   WAS     20     77    3.9      2       4       4      73   18.2       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    13    W   Dec 1   ARI     19     79    4.2      0       5       6      36    7.2       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    14    W   Dec 8   DET     29    217    7.5      2       1       1       4    4.0       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    15    L  Dec 15  @MIN      8     38    4.8      0       5       7      68   13.6       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    16    W  Dec 22   CHI     18    133    7.4      2       6       6      29    4.8       0       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    17    W  Dec 29  @DAL     27    131    4.9      0       1       2       3    3.0       1       0       0       0       0       0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     -    -       -     -    314   1607    5.1      9      52      64     540   10.4       2       1       0       0       0       0

[BurntSushi]

I've updated the database dump so that future builds will have the correct data.

Thank you!

[morefromalan]

Thanks @BurntSushi !