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.”
Make it like rugby football, take the kick from where the ball crossed the line; example - if a touchdown is scored close to the corner then the kick is taken from over that side not right in front of the goalposts.
We won’t need goalposts any more
So we should purposely keep aspects of it uninteresting? For what reason?
Like books, we should gut the story and character-building and get right to the conflicts, chases and endings.
This was already tried around 2000 with the XFL and it failed immediately.
The lavish gay spectacle you envision would not be better.
The PAT isn’t the story or character-building. It’s that useless extra paragraph or two that makes you wonder why the editor apparently zoned out.
“Gay spectacle”? What the hell is wrong with you people? You act like Goodell’s talking about banning tackling. “Going for two” would still be an option according to one proposal Goodell was looking at (in a way).
XFL failed b/c of the lack of quality football. It was obviously a poor-man’s NFL. The lack of a PAT was not what killed it.
There never was a point. The pro bowl has always been terrible football, with some rules tweaks (no blitzing high on the list) to make it worse. The only reason there ever was to watch the pro bowl is that during the pre-game they announced the HOF inductees, then came the internet so you didn’t even have to watch that much, now they announce right before the Super Bowl (which is of course now after the pro bowl). And yet millions will watch.
lol
I don’t really see the point of injury time. It’s much easier to just pause the clock instead of adding time to the clock. Though I’m fine with the players/fans not knowing the exact time. makes players play harder not knowing which play will end the game/half/quarter.
But the suggestions (some concurrent, others exclusive) I like best are:
- Eliminate the PAT, make it 6 pts or the 2-pt conversion.
- Make the td-scoring player kick the PAT (leave punts/FGs as they are, with a designated kicker).
- Eliminate the break-the-plane rule, the ball/player must touch the endzone.
- Move the kick back to 10-20 yds. (Or for a designated 2-pt attempt, from the 3 or 5.)
- Any kick blocks should be considered live and able to be returned for a touchdown, until a down, 2pt, or out of bounds.
The PAT is pretty much a waste of time. I think they can get rid of it and just go with the 2 pt conversion from the 4 yd line, and it would be a better game. I don’t particularly care for any tie-breaker rule I’ve ever seen, so the 2PAT might keep ties from happening. I believe I’ve read someplace that the 2 pt has about a 40% success rate.
It will make the kicker a little less significant, but the truth is that it’s the field goals that make a difference. And Prater on kickoffs the other night simply didn’t give the return specialist a chance. Awesome leg.
I would also limit the number of 4th down punts per half to 4. I hate it when they’re on their own 40 with 4th and inches and they punt. Man up...go for it!
They definitely need to make a blocked PAT returnable for two points, like it is in college.
I like that, a lot....It would definitely add a new twist on the game, as teams would have to think about conserving their punts.
Then why is Goodell trying to turn the NFL into the XFL?
1. No rules.
2. No substitutions.
3. No time limit.
Wait a minute, that's three rules, isn't it? Dang it, back to the drawing board.
If you don’t like football, just stop watching.
I kinda agree with you. But I would rather see them run or pass for the 2 pt. conversion OR a desperation PAT with a line of scrimmage at the 30 yard line or further..which means a kick of at least 50 yards.......
It takes 3 seconds from kick to net, but it’s still a 45 second play clock play with the teams lining up. We might not need every second to be maximum spectacle, but removing a just plain boring play improves the product.
The XFL had lots of problems, not the least of which being that the quality of play made Div 2 NCAA seem gripping.
So what? 45 seconds after a score is a beneficial downtime. Sometimes kicks are missed. Sometimes people go for two.
Just because the game as a whole was bad doesn’t mean they didn’t have a couple of good ideas. The skycam largely came from them.
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