This archive of NFL play-by-play data popped back up on Hacker News. More grist for the sports data hacking mill:
I’ve recently completed a project to compile publicly-available NFL play-by-play data. It took a while, but now it’s ready.
The resulting database comprises nearly all non-preseason games from the 2002 through [edit: 2012] seasons. I have not performed any analysis on the data, so what you’ll get are the only basics—time, down, distance, yard line, play description, and score. It’s almost exactly what I started with. I’ll leave any analysis up to you.