In 2018, Golden Tate played against the Cowboys as a member of the Lions in Week 7. He will play against the Cowboys as a member of the Eagles in Weeks 10 and 14.

Which players have played against one team three times during one regular season?


This has happened way more often than I thought. There have been 151 times that a player went up against the same team 3 or more times in one regular season. I say 3 or more, because out of those 151, two players have played the same team 4 times in a regular season! Here is the list, sorted by year and team, with the two 4-time players at the top.

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I found these by going team-by-team in Pro Football Reference, using this sort of lookup: http://pfref.com/tiny/e6L0f. I have linked the Green Bay Packers as an example, and by changing the opponent in the search bar, you can see other teams too.

  • Wow, I was not expecting this many players. Great work. Bounty coming your way. – user16112 Nov 16 '18 at 17:45
  • Thanks! It didn't take a lot of work and I was also surprised at the number of results. The only team no one has played three times in a season is the Panthers. – Pawr Nov 16 '18 at 23:27

So here is the list of all the players having played a team at least 4 times in a single season, there were no 5 times

So using a similar method as was used before just adding in playoffs as one of the criteria: http://pfref.com/tiny/ra52c

  • 1
    Good work. Thanks for the insight. If you want the proper credit, you may ask your own question and self-answer it with your findings, referencing my question if you like. – user16112 Jan 8 at 14:33

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