Eagles

The NFL Wants to Make Extra Point Attempts 43-yard Kicks

By Kyle Scott

Published: Mar 4th, 2014 · 1:35 PM EST

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I am all for the NFL doing away with the extra point, forcing a two-point attempt, shrinking the goal posts or having a dance-off for the seventh and final point with the loser getting death. But this, this makes no sense:

The NFL Competition Committee has discussed experimenting this preseason with a longer — much longer — extra-point try. According to one member, the committee’s meetings this weekend included preliminary talks about placing the ball at the 25-yard line for the extra-point kick — which would make it a 43-yard attempt — rather than the 2-yard line, where it is currently placed.

Last season, kickers missed just five of 1,267 extra-point attempts, a conversion rate of 99.6 percent —so good that Commissioner Roger Goodell recently suggested the demise of the extra point could be imminent, because it is almost automatic, and thus not exciting enough. A longer extra-point try certainly would make things more interesting and require significantly more strategizing. The conversion rate of field goals between 40 and 49 yards last season was 83 percent. The last time the extra-point conversation rate regularly fell below 90 percent was in the 1930s and early 1940s. That surely would give coaches something to ponder when weighing whether to kick for one point or try for two, with the success rate for two-point conversion attempts typically around 50 percent.

You know what, good idea. In fact, let’s make it one point from the 2, two points from the 20, three points from the 43, and four points when you set the net at 20 feet and Jonathan Taylor Thomas is your kicker*:

The extra point is a joke. Teams spend all this effort going down the field and then, once in a blue moon, get screwed because their kicker stinks or a long snapper isn’t married to Julie Dorenbos. All the concept of the extra point does is add a variable to what should be a fixed scoring system. It, by its very nature, is not a fair measure of the better team. It’s like the shootout in hockey, or if baseball decided extra inning games with a home run derby. But since the NFL is insistent on keeping it around, then it should be a two-point attempt or nothing. At least there’s some skill involved in that. I’m sure that’s the goal with moving the kick back, encouraging coaches to go for two, but, as pointed out by Deadspin, coaches are risk adverse and will just take the higher percentage shot– the kick. But at 83%, a game with six touchdowns, which should be 21-21, will have one team that misses one kick, causing someone to lose 21-20. That’s what’s going to happen. Tie games with more than five touchdowns combined won’t be tied because the NFL is ratings obsessed and wants to ruin its product. Dumb.

*Apparently the NBA is seriously considering this and I am flummoxed.