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You can retrieve schedules, scores, weekly player and team statistics, play-by-play, standings, injuries, depth charts, ratings and selected intelligence. Start with the endpoint reference above to see populated fields and the minimum plan. Follow a list response ID into its detail route when you need one game or player.

Game surfaces update during live play when a current feed is available. Current-season archive tables refresh daily at 09:00 UTC, while each response reports its own data timestamp. Use that timestamp rather than assuming every category shares one cadence.

Create an account and copy the API key from your dashboard. Pass it as a bearer token in the Authorization header or as X-API-Key. Start by fetching Week 1 games, then follow a returned game ID into the play-by-play route.

Begin with a list endpoint instead of guessing an identifier. Game, team and player records expose IDs accepted by their corresponding detail routes. Store those IDs as opaque strings because their format is not a customer contract.

The NFL catalog spans six completed seasons from 2020 through 2025, with 2026 schedules also loaded. Free includes the current season, Solo and Trio include up to five seasons, and Edge and Pro include all available history. A technical detail disclosure names the available span for each field.

Season means the calendar year in which that NFL season begins. Week and game type separate preseason, regular-season and postseason records. Send both season and week when you need a narrow weekly slice.

Yes, player statistics are stored at player-week grain. Populated fields include passing, rushing, receiving and fantasy_points_ppr. Sum weekly rows for season totals and retain the weeks when you need form or consistency.

Play-by-play requires a Pro-tier API key. Free, Solo, Trio and Edge keys receive a 403 with an upgrade hint on this route; the Pro requirement is specific to play-by-play, and schedules, scores, weekly stats and injuries stay available at Free. As of 4 September 2026, the route also includes verified passer, rusher and receiver names and identifiers after migration 224 was applied and the serving contract landed, alongside down, distance, clock, EPA and win probability for the same sequence. Use the actor fields when present and keep actor-free handling for plays such as kickoffs, punts and timeouts.

An unknown player returns 404 and a malformed identifier returns 400. A valid query with no rows returns an empty collection, while a real statistical zero remains numeric zero. Check status, the error envelope and response metadata before deciding which case you received.

The injury surface combines the NFL weekly report with a current roster and reserve-list snapshot. Game designation, practice participation, roster status and provider narrative remain separate facts, and every response names its source timestamps. Historical queries exclude the current roster snapshot rather than attaching today’s status to an old week.

Your daily and per-minute limits come from your plan and are shown in the dashboard. Cache closed-season responses because they rarely change. Poll only active games at the cadence your interface needs, and back off when the API returns a rate-limit response.

Yes, current-season natural-key rows can be replaced when a corrected publication arrives. The next daily refresh brings those corrections into the archive. Keep the row timestamp if your product needs to explain when a value changed.

Yes for the NFL data itself: schedules, play-by-play, rosters and player stats are licensed for commercial use. Your plan still governs which endpoints and history depth you can call. If you intend to redistribute raw records rather than build a product on top of them, contact support first, since terms differ across the sports we carry.

API timestamps use ISO 8601 and UTC unless a field explicitly says otherwise. Convert to a local timezone only at the presentation layer. Keep the original timestamp in storage so daylight-saving changes do not alter the underlying event.

Read the explicit game status rather than inferring finality from a score or kickoff time. Overtime remains part of the same game record, while postponed and canceled games keep their own status. Continue polling only statuses that can still advance.