| About redskinsdb.com |
About RedskinsDB.comWhere do I begin? The idea for RedskinsDB.com came about during the 2005 regular season. There was a database that I was particularly fond of that had been taken offline earlier in the year. During the months following, I'd searched on a fairly regular basis to find a replacement and nothing really tripped my trigger. I use game databases as part of an on-going hobby of collecting game DVDs. My actual interest is creating DVD inserts (matching cases) for all the games I've collected to-date. I use data on the Internet to create game summaries, and put in some essential information like dates, stadium, attendance, etc. My pile of games grew deeper as waited for the better database to make an appearance and finally, decided I would build one of my own. Shortly after the 2005 season ended I began the project in earnest. The first thing I did was to contact Rich Tandler, the author of "The Redskins From A to Z". Perhaps the most authoritative history book ever written on Redskins game history. I would need his support or the site wouldn't be worth putting together. The second thing I needed was a source to error check and validate my data. Enter a phenomenal Web site, NFLHistory.net. In conjunction with the Pro Football Researchers Association, NFLHistory.net has published an extensive library of box scores from the beginning of the league. Much of my effort, aside from the herculean effort to key all the data in, was analyzing descrepencies between the several sources and making an educated guess on who might have the more acccurate data. Attendance estimates is a good example of data that varied considerably in the early years. Ultimately, I hope I have represented the most accurate information possible in this database. I also went through considerable soul searching to determine the best balance between providing sufficient information, yet having a database that was easily and intuitively searchable. It is a hard balance to strike, but in the end I felt that hard-core statistical data is a job for someone else. What I want to provide is enough meaningful data to be informative, but utilize the game descriptions to make the data and interface as "human" as possible by providing that journalistic feel that I feel is critical in portraying history rathering than regurgitating the facts. In my version of a Redskins database you'll find pictures of every Redskins coach and stadium played in with only a couple of omissions. For example, several games were played at the Milwaukee State Fair Park between 1939 and 1950. In working directly with the park historian, I've gained permission to use an exclusive photo from their archives. I hope I'll be able to fill all of the notable omissions with similar efforts. At the end of the day and through all the countless hours, this site has been a labor of love. A site "For the Fans" by a fan. I hope it provides value and does justice to our remarkable and storied history. If it does, then that's all the compensation I'll ever require. Please enjoy your visit to RedskinsDB.com and be assured I'm always thinking about ways to improve upon it! I'd like to acknowledge the resources I've referenced and some people that have inspired me. My online family at HailRedskins.com with whom I have exclusively partnered
with on this project
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