The CFL announced that it’s considering a few changes to the points after touchdown, to make the converts more interesting.
Currently, a convert attempt is kicked from the 12 yard line (which means a 12 yard attempt, as the field goal is right on the goal line in the CFL). Two point running convert attempts are scrimmaged from the 5 yard line.
The proposal is to move the kicking converts to the 32 yard line, to make them more challenging (last year, 99.4% of kicked converts were successful).
Another change is to move the line of scrimmage for 2 point convert attempts to the 3 yard line, from the 5 yard line, to entice coaches to give it a go a bit more often, since a run-in convert is more exciting.
And a third possible change: the scoring team can elect to try to run in the convert from the 10 yard line; if it does so, the convert is 3 points instead of two.
And, for kicked converts, if the ball is wide, it remains live, and the defending team can try to run it back for two points.
All very interesting.
CFL looks to make converts more challenging: Rule committee proposes changes for 2015
I’m OK with those changes. The convert is one of the more boring plays in the game, so anything to spice that up is good to me.
And if you get the ball between the windmill blades and into the clown’s mouth, is that a bonus rouge or something?
While I’d agree the extra point is boring and silly, my first suggestion would just be to eliminate it entirely. Make a touchdown worth seven points if you don’t do anything, or either 6 or 8 if you succeed/fail at the harder conversion. Pushing the PAT back just puts more emphasis on the kicking game, which is kind of football’s mini-game and has little to do with the other aspects of the sport.
Since the NFL is talking about similar rule changes, I’d make the same suggestion there.
As a general observation I don’t know why either league needs to do anything, really; as much as I’d like to see the PAT just thrown away, because it’s pointless, the current scoring systems in the NFL and CFL work fine the way they are and there is no super compelling reason to change them. Eliminating PATs would hack five or six minutes off the time it takes to play a game, which is a pretty good idea, I guess. Adding a bazillion ways to score, however, will not really add as much strategy to the game as people might think.
At the risk of pointing out the obvious, games are not interesting because they are complicated - games like soccer, basketball and hockey are relatively simple, and yet are very popular and result in extensive debates and discussion about strategy and tactics. Football is ALREADY one of the most, if not the most, complicated team sports in the world. I really don’t think it needs more complexity.