Posted on 01/21/2014 10:03:45 AM PST by nikos1121
Earlier this season, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick told reporters that extra points in football were boring because they have become so automatic, and now it appears commissioner Roger Goodell might agree.
In fact, on Monday, Goodell appeared on NFL Network’s “Total Access,” and took things a step further than Belichick, indicating that the league’s competition committee could consider eliminating the PAT altogether.
“One of the things the committee does besides looking first at the safety issues … (is) looking to see, ‘Are there any plays in the game that, really, are not consequential?’” Goodell told host Rich Eisen. “And one of the issues that has happened is that the extra point is almost automatic.”
Goodell is right enough there. The NFL only saw five missed extra points this regular season — one each from Green Bay, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Tennessee and Philadelphia — in 1,267 tries. And the active kicker with the worst PAT conversion rate is Graham Gano, who has made 97.6 percent of his regular-season kicks since coming into the league four seasons ago.
But if football actually did do away with the extra point, then what would happen after a touchdown?
“You want to add excitement with every play,” Goodell said. “So there have been some proposals. Some are still going through the process of creativity, but there’s one proposal in particular that I’ve heard about (where) it’s automatic that you get seven points when you score a touchdown, but you could potentially go for an eighth point, either by running or passing the ball. But if you fail, you’d go back to six.”
It’s certainly an interesting idea that would force coaches to rethink the way they approach certain game situations, but before you start thinking about how such a rule might impact the 17th round of your fantasy draft next year, take a breath — because Goodell, in his interview, also made it clear that the proposal he discussed is just that.
“We often get a lot of ideas that are thrown out,” Goodell said. “The committee will look at all of them and decide what is worthy of further consideration.
“There’s some issues, and it goes back to … unintended consequences,” he continued. “You want to be careful there; is that going to discourage people from going for two? We want to make sure we look at some of that, and that’s what the committee does. They’ll make, obviously, some focus on this in the committee and see where they come out.”
There’s already a 2 minute commercial break after a score. PAT kicks are almost never missed (less than 1% failure rate, 5 misses for over 1200 tries this season), and all the ideas being kicked around to get rid of the PAT keep the possibility of going for 2 because that’s an exciting play, they just want to get rid of the automatically successful kick that’s boring.
My bottom line. Football scoring isn’t broken, thus no need to “fix it.
...actually, field goal scoring needs to be fixed...for a team with a line of scrimmage inside the 15, a FG should count for four points, LOS from 15-23, three points, LOS from 24-33, two, and LOS 34 and beyond, only one...that would really shake things up, and not fundamentally change the game...
I think on 4th down if you can punt it thru the goal posts that is 3 points. Otherwise it is a normal punt.
Interesting idea. My daughter was a team manager for boys rugby at her hs and I enjoyed watching the games.
I would like see two points to the defense for a turnover.
That might take some of the emphasis off the passing game and we could get back to old days of three yards and a cloud of dust.
You do realize he just wants to eliminate this play so he can sell more commercial time?
Ain’t nothing broken. Leave it alone. Having the defense score on an extra point is stupid. It’s a bonus for the offense, not a chance to turn a TD into 4 points.
And kneel downs are what you get when you win. Arena football makes you have to gain positive yards or they stop the clock. There is no reason for outdoor, full size football to emulate that.
The PAT is just as automatic in college. And most good, large suburban high schools now have soccer teams that provide a very serviceable place kicker. In fact, our high school team considers itself in field goal range once it gets inside the opponent’s 30. And pretty much every team in our conference, year in and year out, has the same weapon.
I don’t think it sells more commercial time, but it will get more eyes on the commercial after the score. Let’s face it when a team scores and you know they’re not going for two that’s generally the signal to start the bathroom or kitchen run early (thanks to 45 seconds for an automatic point and 2 minutes of commercials and a kickoff you know is going to be kneeled in the end zone there’s time for both).
But it IS broken. It’s the most boring play in sports and people have been complaining about that for decades. Defensive scoring is a ripple they might put in later, it doesn’t seem to add or subtract much to the college game. But you really need to get rid of a play that’s successful 99% of the time. FG kicks aren’t terribly exciting in the first place (unless it’s really long, or for the win), FG kicks from the 2 for 1 point that never miss are just dull. PATs are an ignorable play, never a good thing for a sport, especially not one that juices a billion dollars from each of its broadcasters (almost 2 billion from ESPN).
I got no problem with kneel downs, that was other folks complaining.
Anybody that really thinks the PAT should stay should find the Eagles-Lions snow game (only 1 PAT attempted in the whole game) on the net and explain how much better the game would have been with PATs. This issue has been bandied about for a long time, but I think that game is the one that put the final nail in the coffin, it was a better more exciting game with more dynamic scoring results (TDs not being automatic 7s but shifting between being 6 and 8) because they couldn’t kick.
Why 2 points? If you block/return a FG or punt, it counts as a full touchdown. Why should a PAT be different?
If that’s the case, how many times then will a team simply take a knee and not risk taking a PAT, if they could potentially give up 7 points?
After a teem scores a touchdown, the kicker lines up at the fifty yard line and kicks Goodell square in the nuts.
One point if Goodell collapses, two points if he pukes on himself.
The NFL sells 3 hour games to TV. If we eliminate PATs do you think we get more regular plays or more commercials?
Remember the NFL changed clock rules (re-starting after an out-of-bounds play, for example, except in final minutes of each half).
This was to shorten the games, lower number of plays, to fit more commercials in that 3 hour window.
I don’t see that this would be anything different. I would rather a boring play to more commercials.
The NFL sells games of indeterminate and highly variable broadcast length (just look at last Sunday, the early game took a lot longer than the late game because kept doing clock eating drives). I don’t expect to get more of anything getting rid of the PATS, it’s getting rid of the most boring play in sports, it could be replaced with a moment of silence and it would be more interesting.
Even if it just tucks in more commercials, which it really won’t since PATs are untimed downs and happen right before a commercial break already, so what. It’s the most boring play in sports, it serves no purpose, it almost never fails, it’s time has passed, time to wave bye bye.
The NFL has, in the past, made moves to cut the time of games because they aim for a 3 hour window.
Yes, they want the 3 hour window, it’s proven to be good for sports, long enough to have enough commercials for the network to pay their bills, short enough to hold the audience for the whole game. There’s nothing wrong with that. And it doesn’t change the fact that PATs are boring and pointlessly automatic in their success. If dropping them helps them hit the 3 hour window better then that’s another good reason to get rid of the most boring play in sports.
The success rate for the PAT in 2013 was 1256/1261. Out of those 5 fails, 4 were blocked. A 0.32% rate to even have a chance to try to return the block for a td. Not getting that extra point can add up over the course of a game, and the average tds per game for a team was 2.38, so those non-attempts can add up to a field goal. Missing out on those points is not even close to being worth avoiding the 1/3 of one percent chance that the defense might block it, and the even smaller chance they’ll return it. Especially when the most common margin for a game win is only 3 points.
On another note, even though you can’t score off of a blocked PAT, you can still return it:
http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2013/12/8/5189208/eagles-run-back-blocked-pat-dont-realize-that-it-doesnt-count
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