Professional golfers miss three-foot putts ten times more often than NFL place-kickers miss conversions (cite). Professional golfers even miss two-foot putts more often than NFL kickers miss conversions. You have to get down to around 18 inches to hit the NFL success rate.
Imagine if golf involved halting the action while a special-teams golfer and caddy came out to sink an 18-inch putt. Yeah, that would be compelling sport.
I like that! The crossbar can be permanently attached; field goals would be good no matter where the ball crossed unless deflected away from the uprights by the bar.
Bears play was the one I was referring to in 2012. The Bucs tried a couple of fake field goals but no fake XPs. As I said, I can’t find any reference to a fake extra point attempt during the 2013 season.
I think taking cues from other sports is the key.
So either have a giant windmill in front of the uprights like in mini-golf.
Or make it like the three-point contest in basketball. TDs are worth zero points but allow for “Scoring Bonus Time” where nine balls are arranged in a semicircle between the 30 (at the sidelines) and 40 (down the center). Maybe add a time limit. The kicks are not too easy, it allows a large scoring variance (0-9) and if you nail the last one to win the game you can turn and walk away before it crosses the uprights, Larry Bird style. Also setting up will take time so more money making commercials for the league.
Ironically, it’s already at that point, right now, with no rules changes.
The success rate on 2-point conversions has varied a bit year-by-year (because relatively few are tried), but it hovers at around 50%. Twice that rate is, of course, 100%, which is essentially where the 1-point conversion is right now.
The success rate of 2-point conversions in 2013, by team:
http://www.sportingcharts.com/nfl/stats/team-two-point-conversion-statistics/2013/
I actually rather like this idea. The PAT is so routine it’s boring.
The problem is that a lot of the cures are worse than the disease. Part of the elegance of the 2-point try is that it comes from the same spot as the PAT. If you move the PAT back to make it harder, do you also move the spot of the 2-point try? If so, nobody will ever go for 2 unless they’re completely desperate, since 2-PT success rates are about 50% from the 2-yard-line. If not then you move the football depending on what the offense wants to do.
I would prefer to just count a TD as a guaranteed 7, or 6/8 depending on the 2-point try.
I’ve always kind of wondered that at what point of success NFL coaches would regularly go for two. I mean, if two point conversions were 70% successful, then it would be obvious to go for them in most situations since you’d be getting 1.4 points on average compared to about .99 points for extra points.
But NFL coaches are so beholden to tradition and not doing anything viewed as risky or innovative because any deviation from the expected gets legions of dumb football fans ready to jump on any failure you make, attacking you for daring to deviate from their expectations.
Similarly, fewer people will criticize a coach for losing by one point in a game they could’ve tied at any earlier point with a two point conversion, but they’d get all over the ass of a coach that lost by one point because he went for a two point conversion and failed.
So I would speculate that a two point conversion would have to have at least an 80% chance of success for coaches to start defaulting that way.
As long as we’re just making up stuff to make it more “exciting,” why not institute and “wager” system? As in, we just scored a TD for 6 point; now we’ll wager 1 point our kicker can make a FG from the 2 yard line. Make it, you get the extra point, but if you miss it, you get docked a point. Most NFL kickers are fairly reliable up to at least 40-45 yards, so make it 2 points from 45+, 3 points from 55+.
When somebody else does it and wins a Super Bowl. NFL coaches are immune to mathematics (holler if you hear me, “punting on 4th and short from the 35”.)
Because what we need in the era of increased concussion awareness is more plays at the goal line with receivers running crossing patterns into charging linebacker.
Hell why stop at 2 points. You get one play from the 20 to get three extra points…one play from the 35 to get four. One play from the 50 to get 5. Also institute the college rule where a returned extra try is worth 2 points.
Really? You are on the edge of your seat with “excitement” during every PAT attempt due to the infinitesimal possibility of a fake kick? Or are you really in the bathroom peeing like everyone else in America during that time?
Gangster-I totally want the return rule implemented.
Both.
I can’t recall the last time I saw a fake extra point try. I’d guess that there is maybe one a year. 99.9% of the time they try the kick and 98% of the time they make it.
As noted above, that’s about right. It appears that there may not have been one at all last season. Fake field goals are rare enough; fake XPs are even more so.
Actually, 99.6% of the time, they make it. 
I dare you to get in Rob Gronkowski’s face and say this.
I mean, even if you hate the Patriots with every fiber of your ‘Spygate!!!11!’ chanting being, you have to admit that the point of pro football is entertaining plays, and losing a very entertaining player on a meaningless play is bad.
Just give the scoring team six points, plus the option of one extra point free or the chance to go for two.
The crazy thing is, despite the fact that this is exactly the same decision as now, I bet Goodell is right that coaches would go for two more often if the rule were changed. Which would be a good thing, as going for two is more entertaining and exciting than taking the 99.7% guaranteed extra point.
Why does anyone think this wold lead to more two-point tries. The math now is about 50% shot at two 99.6% chance shot at one. Under the proposed rules the tradeoff math has the same chance at two and 100% chance shot at one.
I am amazed that the answers in this thread have not hit on the real reason this is happening.
What I have said over and over in my time on the dope is this: if something is happening and you want to know why, the answer is always money.
This is no different.
Goodell could not care less about the extra point one way or the other. What he DOES care about is money.
Since the PAT is virtually automatic, people leave the TV after a TD is scored, and miss the commercials between the PAT and the kickoff. And if you decide you don’t need to see the kickoff, you will be away from the game for 5 minutes or so. That’s not good for selling advertisement time, and that’s why Roger is interested in doing something different with it.
I don’t know what will be ultimately decided, but the PAT as we know it will be going the way of the buggy whip. The stats folks have compiled for this thread show how good kickers have become, so moving it back is probably not going to be the solution.
Right now, the NFL loses viewers after TD’s. I know I am not the only one who channel surfs after a TD is scored. Sometimes, i find something else that interests me more, so I don’t immediately go back to the game. The NFL knows this, and has seen it in their research numbers.
When they figure out a way to keep the audience glued to the game between TD and kickoff, that is what the answer will be.
I like the idea of giving 7 points for a TD; 6 pts for the TD, one pt. If you choose not to kick, and the option to go for 2 pts.
For statistics, I think you have to keep the TD at 6 points, and players that score a TD will be credited 6, like they have forever. Since the EP is almost automatic anyway, give the one pt to the kicker on the team for his overall point total.
This way, the viewer who leaves when the TD is scored might stick around, since the kickoff is the next play that will be shown.
I think they will ultimately keep it as close to the current system as possible. Purists won’t react well narrowing goalposts, although i personally like this idea, especially for FG.
The NFL needs to do something, though. The TD-EP-commercial-KO-commercial stretch is awful. And as bad as it is for the TV audience, the people in the stands and the players hate it more. The players basically stand around, and people watch the scoreboard, bored.
:smack::smack::smack::smack:
Well, at least I mentioned Rugby.