when kids go through a big growth spurt they do get a bit clumsy until they sort out the new dimensions. best time for things like tai chi or yoga to help with the sorting.
Yeah, ‘conversion’ is a specific term, as in ‘two-point conversion’, but you’re right, I think announcers use the term ‘to convert’ on a play kind of loosely at times.
Oh, he’s fine. He doesn’t particularly like sports, and can draw very well, and build impressive models.
He gets exercise going hiking in the woods.
He should ‘tryout’ for football. Don’t embarrass him by saying ‘audition’. 
Oh, what’s the good of being a teenager if you can’t bitch about how embarrassing your parents are?
I hope your questions have been answered. I’m just here to say I’m so stealing this.
Oh, and to say baseball is better! (Runs form the angry crowd)
I believe they do, to both. In fact, they probably go for 2 point conversions more often because the quality of kickers in HS is much lower than in college or the pros.
This is a side effect of specialization. Athleticism is desired, but can take many different forms, not everyone has to be fleet of foot or able to catch, throw or dodge. Your son is big and strong, which makes him the ideal body type for The Line. Offense and Defense both have big strong guys on the line, none of whom need to catch or throw or leap. Footwork, balance, and strength are prioritized, as well as teamwork with the rest of the line.
Well, of course. (Says the native New Yorker)
5’10" and 220? Yeah, probably a lineman, possibly linebacker. Depending on his speed and what kind of set the high school uses, maybe even fullback or tight end. The fullback is pretty dead in the pros and the tight end is expected to catch a lot of passes these days and not just block, but that’s not nearly as true in high school, where you could probably even still get away with a wing or wishbone in some places.
Also, despite the stereotype, linemen have to be smart, especially on the offensive line. They tend to have some of the highest Wonderlic scores in the NFL.
This. The stats are skewed because “not punting” is used when there’s a realistic chance of a score, or a real need to keep a drive alive in the dying minutes of the game, ie chances are better for a good outcome. It’s not a random sample of going for it on 4th down.
For a true comparison, you would need good stats for punting on your own 45 compared to going for it on your own 45, or some similar way to correct for that variable.
Speaking of two-point conversions, that’s probably another place where the conventional wisdom is too risk-averse. A pro kicker, given a point-after attempt, will succeed almost all the time, and so get one extra point. And so that’s what teams almost always do, to the point that people think of “a touchdown” as being worth 7 points, not 6, and final game scores are often a multiple of 7. Going for the 2-point conversion is more risky: It only succeeds about half the time. But it’s worth 2 points instead of 1.
Now, there are times when the relative score makes it a no-brainer to go for 2. For instance, if the game is almost over, and you’re 8 points behind and you score a touchdown, it’s better to go for 2 and have a chance to tie, than to go for 1 and still be behind. And coaches do go for 2 in those situations. But nobody ever goes for 2 when they score six minutes into the first quarter for the first score of the game… not even when their conventional offense is good enough that they have a bit better than a 50% chance of success.
On the subject of conversions, I would like to point out that, in youth football, you will often find that going for a kick after a touchdown will get you two points, while running a play earns you just one. At higher levels, the kick is going to be the less-valuable option because you can generally dig up somebody decent enough to make it reasonably automatic, but the likelihood of getting the wee ones to master the process of a good long snap followed by a good hold and a good kick means it’s actually the premium choice.
In the NFL, this was true, until a few years ago. NFL kickers were converting PAT kicks at a 99+% rate, making them nearly automatic. The league, deciding that there was no drama in a PAT kick anymore, moved the placement for a point-after kick from the 2 yard line to the 15, making it a 32 or 33 yard kick instead of 19 or 20, and the conversion percentage dropped from 99+% down to around 95% or a bit less (it was 93% last season).
Meanwhile, 2-point conversions (which are still done from the 2 yard line) convert at about a 50% rate. So, playing the long game, as it were, unless you, as a coach, are confident in your kicker being able to convert his PATs at better than the league rate, it might actually make sense to go for 2 more often – 2 points @ 50% yields more points in total than 1 point @ 95%. (Of course, that math ignores game situations, and your team’s score relative to the other team.)
Teams have 1, maybe 2, 2 point conversion plays planned out and practiced for a game. They want to save those for the emergency situation at the end of the game, not reveal them early on. Also, at the end of a game defenses are tired and vulnerable and the success rate will be higher. If 2 point attempts are made more often the success rate will drop and not seem so favorable any more.
I don’t have stats but my gut feeling after the change is that the Steelers tend to gamble the most on the two point conversion early in the game. In theory it’s no different a play than any other short yardage play and doesn’t need a special play. What I think we don’t see enough of is accepting the penalty on the try and swapping to going for two from the 1.
Teams are more likely to go for it on fourth down now, as analytics is starting to steep into all sports, not just baseball. Still, punting on third down is occasionally seen as a strategic or surprise decision.
Years ago Steve Martin had a bit about coaching football, which did not go well: “I used to like to punt on first down.”
The infamous Snow Bowl featured many early down punts, where the coaches figured they were better off with the slippery ball in their opponents hands, waiting for the other team to fumble the ball deep in their territory.
It’s dawning on me that one of the reasons I have always found football incomprehensible, and therefore boring, was that I cannot tell the actual play from the time when the ball is out of play, and the players are just getting into position.
I have this Young Sheldon on the DVR, and I reviewed it with all the new knowledge I’ve gained from this thread, and I have to say, the scales have fallen.
Apparently, there are not just two separate teams for offense and defense, but the team in charge of punting is yet a third team.
Since I started this thread, can I ask what exactly Charlie Brown is trying to do when Lucy pulls the ball away? Is that punting? would it be unacceptable thread drift to bring it up?
In case anyone is wondering, my parents were well-traveled native New Yorkers with PhDs, who knew 13 languages between them. They took me regularly to the MOMA, the Museum of Natural History, and the library. We also went to several Mets games. Among other places my parents took me were Washington, DC, colonial Williamsburg, Philadelphia and Boston in 1976; the Kotel; Yad VaShem; the Prague Jewish Quarter; Notre Dame; the Louvre; and Stonehenge. But never a football game. Nobody’s perfect.
Punting does not have another person (placeholder) hold the ball. The punter handles and kicks the ball themselves. Charlie would be kicking a field goal or extra point.
He’s not punting, he’s kicking a field goal. Field goals are for points, punting is for advancing the ball down the field to the other team. The punter drops the ball in front of him and kicks it before it hits the ground.
