Extra Points Could Become 42 Yards in the NFL
NFL Media's Judy Battista reports the NFL Competition Committee is in preliminary talks about placing the ball at the 25-yard line for the point-after attempt. That would make the extra point a 42-yard attempt.
The ball is currently spotted at the 2-yard line, a 20-yard chip shot that was converted 99.6 percent of the time during the 2013 season. The kick was so automatic that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell floated the idea in January of eliminating the PAT entirely.
"There is no consensus yet," one member of the committee told Battista. "We could experiment in preseason, but we are not there yet." Placing the ball at the 25-yard line would certainly increase the degree of difficulty for kickers. The conversion rate of field goals between 40 and 49 yards last season was 83 percent.
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap2000000330385/article/competition-comm…
The 25-yard line might be a bit much, at least at first. Then again, would kickers really miss that much more from, say, the 10 as opposed to the 2? It does seem pretty pointless to keep it as is, given that it's nearly automatic.
But what do you do about 2-point conversions then? You can't move those to the 25-yard line because that'd probably fail around 99.6% of the time. If you just moved kicks out to the 25, everyone would just go for 2.
Eh, I doubt that. It's easier to make a straight field goal then run a play against a traditional goal line defense. I still think most teams would still take the one point.
They'd have to move it back. Teams typically come pretty close to 50% .. I think in the NFL from 2000-20009 it was something like 47%. Kicking would just be stupid.
42% is a number oft quoted around here. However, I think more teams would just practice more red zone plays and have 10 plays ready to go each week. You'd then see that percentage increase and make it an unavoidable advantage to go for 2.
...which is exactly what the NFL wants.
I wouldn't mind this one bit. Why is it stupid? Extra point tries are what's kind of stupid nowadays. Nothing wrong with acknowledging that the game has evolved such that something that used to matter, doesn't, and you'd like it to matter again.
so essentially it's an average length FG, but not worth 3? IDK I guess it's fine. I know they have to change this somehow, but I keep thinking about other major changes like this in other sports.
3 pt line in basketball (Shot clock too I guess, but that's a natural evolution, IMO)
mound height in baseball
2 line pass in hockey I guess
IDK, what's the analog of EP changes in other sports? Moving the FT line back? Increasing the net size in hockey? Seems like the NFL at least is thinking outside the box here.
Closest might be eliminating 2 to make 1 and 3 to make 2 free throws.
I'm not sure what the analogy would be to another sport because I can't think of anything where putting a point on the scoreboard - the ultimate of all possible effects on the game - is so automatic. I don't think any of those work quite the same.
I bet if you did a survey with the question, "How many points is a touchdown worth?" you would get more people who respond with 7 than those who say 6. This would probably change that.
What's interesting to me is that it will drive teams to utilize 2 point conversions, making the PAT something that is only used when a team is down by 1 or up by 8 in the 4th. Scoring a TD as time expires doesn't get you out of the water, making the select few times they happen as exciting as kicking a FG to win/tie the game.
This would transfer more of the outcome of a game from in-the-trenches football to the idiot kickers.
It always seemed strange to me that 22 players do battle, only to have the result determined by a 175 pound kicker.
It's stupid because it needlessly places more weight on the kicking game. I don't see what good can come from adding this kind of variance to every scoring situation. A better solution would be to just do away with PATs and make TDs worth seven points unless a team wants to risk a point to go for two.
I always hated that idea. It's just convoluted. A TD is worth 7, except when it's not?
More weight on the kicking game, and more variance....I don't see why either is a bad thing.
It's not convoluted at all. You and I have each just explained the rule in a single sentence.
why doesn't the NFL just institute a kick-off. Kickers alternate 50 yard FGs from a tee w/ all other players on the sidelines until one makes and the other misses.
this makes no sense unless you change where the 2-pointer is tried from as well.
a better idea: steal from rugby. just change it so that the place on the field that where you kick from in the lateral direction is based upon where the touchdown was scored. in rugby, it is based on where the ball is placed, or crazily enough "touched down", but in the NFL it would likely be where the player crosses the line.
Are we limiting it to the hash marks, or do you actually expect teams to try to kick an XP from, essentially, the sideline if a touchdown is scored while leaping over a pylon?
Could expand it beyond the hash marks if it was pushed back.
I really like that idea.
I think just moving the PAT attempt back would be a lot easier.
Edit: or are you suggesting having two pairs of goalposts at the same time?
That would make way more sense than chaning the posts every time. If a field goal hits the inner it is still good.
This is a bad idea still.
They have four uprights on the goals on practice fields...
Let's quit moving the goal posts and get to the real issue, the problem I have with this rule is that while it strives to make "every play exciting", it also works against another issue that the NFL believes they're dealing with: putting too much emphasis on kickers.
I also think, from about 42 yards, kickers make it decently over 90%. Add to the fact that now they get to place where the ball starts rather than it just being where the last play ended, and I bet this is made 95% of the time anyway.
I don't know what the solution is. I know I'm not in favor of taking it away. But I'm also not sure that this works. I dunno, maybe give the defense large fathead stickers that they can put on broom sticks to try to block the extra points. Or trampolines, which we all know made basketball better with "slam ball". In all seriousness, I think there needs to be some method of making a block more likely on extra points, that would be more exciting and also put more emphasis on the defense making a play rather than the kicker just missing.
Also, tramampoline
Does it really matter that PATs are automatic? I always thought part of the playcalling strategy was knowing when to take the (near) automatic kick v. when to gamble on going for 2.
I don't think coaches ever bother going for 2 unless getting the 1 point is totally worthless. Like when the touchdown puts them up by 1 or down by 5. Given that I don't think this would change the calculus very much. But it probably would create more instances where the choice has to come into play.
You have to make the two point conversion worth three to get coaches to really think about it outside obvious circumstances.
Just take away the XP all together if you want to do something with it to enhance the viewing experience.
were decided but it'd be interesting to know how many teams covered by a half point or one point in Vegas.
So if no outcomes were decided by the extra point and it is nearly automatic, why not just save time and eliminate the play?
Normal Center/QB exchange, or Michigan Center/QB exchange?
Bazinga!
In other words, your analogy makes no sense.
In other words, your analogy makes no sense.
And that would be unfair. From my experience, going against Eastern European/Russian people in drinking games is a mistake, and I'm Irish/German.
The problem is that the kick is practically automatic, therefore anticlimactic.
The solution: eliminate the kick, give a team a choice after a touchdown of taking seven points automatically, or 6 points plus an attempt at a two-point conversion.
this is pretty dumb. I was hoping some intelligent analysis would come to me, but it hasn't. I don't understand why anyone cares in the least that extra points are automatic. You could just give them seven points for a TD unless the coach wanted to go for an extra point-- but even then, I don't get what the big deal is. I don't remember the NFL (reportedly a few years off of a $150 Million dollar salary cap) suffering because the extra point was a formality.
It involves a pole during the extra point, but not the kicker.