NFL considering proposal to abolish extra points

Submitted by Cold War on

Is the extra point about to go the way of the dinosaur? NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told NFL Media's Rich Eisen on Monday that the league's Competition Committee might eventually abolish the time-tested point after touchdown in favor of a brand-new scoring system.

"The extra point is almost automatic," Goodell said. "I believe we had five missed extra points this year out of 1,200 some odd (attempts). So it's a very small fraction of the play, and you want to add excitement with every play.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap2000000315779/article/nfl-considering-…

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LSAClassOf2000

January 20th, 2014 at 6:51 PM ^

Bill Belichick rang in on this idea, if anyone is interested - HERE

Here's how Belichick put his argument:

"I would be in favor of not seeing it be an over 99 percent conversion rate," Belichick said. "It's virtually automatic. That's just not the way the extra point was put into the game. It was an extra point that you actually had to execute and it was executed by players who were not specialists, they were position players. It was a lot harder for them to do... I don't think that's really a very exciting play because it's so automatic."

He doesn't commit to saying anything one way or another on eliminating them, but if anything, he seems to want more drama associated with them. According to the article, the top seventeen scorers in the regular season were kickers, and this is confirmed by a look at the stats. Jamaal Charles, an RB for the Chiefs, is the first non-kicker and is tied for 18th with Alex Henery and Graham Gano, two kickers. 

Joined: 01/07/2011

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rob50

January 20th, 2014 at 7:12 PM ^

Makes sense to me.

If there is no (or virtually no) variance in the result, its not a contest. Rolling a dice with 249 1's on it and 1 0 would be pretty boring and pointless.

Joined: 01/12/2011

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BlueInWisconsin

January 20th, 2014 at 7:20 PM ^

My idea would be to keep the extra point & two point conversions as they are today with one rule tweek:  Make it so that the personel who are on the field when the TD was scored also have to be on the field for the conversion attempt.  You'd have a lot more reason to go for two becasue you can't bring your place kicker out.  I think that would add a lot of intrigue.

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M Fanfare

January 20th, 2014 at 7:21 PM ^

If the motivation is to make the game more exciting, maybe it would help if they didn't have so many commercial breaks (especially after kickoffs).

Oh wait, that would mean less revenue. Nevermind.

Joined: 08/17/2008

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nappa18

January 20th, 2014 at 7:26 PM ^

Are too easy. Thought so for years. Just move the uprights back another 10 yards. This has been done before, when I first started watching pro football goalposts and uprights were on the goal line. I

Joined: 07/08/2011

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JayMo4

January 20th, 2014 at 8:12 PM ^

Goal posts should be narrowed in the NFL.  Maybe it turns PATs into 90-95% instead of 99% (enough variance to make it worth watching but not enough that teams will just automatically go for 2 every time,) plus it pushes the FG% (also quite high by all-time standards) back down and encourages teams to go for it on fourth down.

 

Obvious solution is obvious, unless they're dead-set on radically changing the game.

Joined: 04/19/2013

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Princetonwolverine

January 20th, 2014 at 8:23 PM ^

Like at a country fair....have a duck go back and forth on the crossbar and the kicker has to knock it over.

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alwaystrueblue

January 20th, 2014 at 8:57 PM ^

moving the PAT back to the 20 yardline would do basically nothing. Kickers in the NFL very rarely miss from 37 yards either. It would still be almost automatic.

 

What they could do is this....

 

Add another set of posts INSIDE the currant posts...but closer together. If you split those...you get 2 points. If not...you get the usual one point. But of course...2 extra posts makes it much more likely that you hit one of then and get no points at all.

Joined: 08/09/2010

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San Diego Mick

January 20th, 2014 at 9:05 PM ^

Please leave the integrity of the game alone. It works just fine, maybe, maybe move it back to the 5 yd line on a 2 pt conv.

And I wouldn't  mind if they put the ball at the 20 for a 3 pt conv to make comebacks more possible and exciting.

But please leave the ex pt alone.

Joined: 05/11/2011

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mgobleu

January 20th, 2014 at 10:22 PM ^

I appreciate the strategy involved in the extra point system as it is. The single point being almost automatic is a huge part of it. It's the safe play and its almost a gimme but you do have the option to gamble. If anything, I'd rather they leave the extra point alone, since it's only a single point (and using decimals would be entirely stupid) you can't make it any less valuable, but you need to make the gamble more enticing. Instead of going for 2, make it worth 3. Other than that, get off my lawn. 

Joined: 07/02/2008

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ScruffyTheJanitor

January 21st, 2014 at 12:53 AM ^

But there are so many people out there who hate the fact that kickers have anything to do with football games. I love field goals, personally.  Instead of taking their rage on the XP's, I wish the anti-kickers would pass a rule limiting the number of field goal attempts per game to 4. That would make for some very interesting coaching decisions for Andy Reid to mess up. 

Joined: 02/03/2011

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CoachBP6

January 21st, 2014 at 1:19 AM ^

I think this is a stupid idea by Roger. The NFL say they want safety yet they expanded Thursday night games to span the whole year. The NFL is also seeking an 18 game regular season. Eliminating the FG isn't going to make the game any safer if anything it adds more physical plays to the game. I think this is a poor attempt to continue to shape the game into what Roger wants.

Joined: 12/18/2013

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Finance-PhD

January 21st, 2014 at 8:39 AM ^

Points won't change.

TD - 6
FG - 3

After TD extra TD - 2
After TD field goal - 1

I don't see them changing that even though the TD is no longer twice as hard as a FG given the skill of FG kickers.

Easy fix would be to add a cross bar to the top. Not being able to kick so high would give more opportunities for the defense to block.

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