NFL Planning To Change Extra Point, Will Vote On Proposal In May
By Ashley Dunkak
@AshleyDunkak
PHOENIX – The NFL wants to spice up the action after touchdowns. Currently, there is zero drama, with teams almost always electing to kick the extra point instead of trying for a two-point conversion. On Wednesday, owners, team executives and coaches discussed how to remedy that situation.
"All teams pretty much said the same thing," competition committee chairman Rich McKay said Wednesday at the owners meetings. "It's time to make this play a football play."
Making the extra point more challenging - by moving the kick back or by narrowing the goal posts - could achieve the NFL's goal in two ways. First, the extra point would be less of a sure bet, and thus more compelling to watch. Second, a riskier extra point might motivate teams to try more two-point conversions.
McKay said several ideas were tossed around, including the elimination of the extra point altogether. McKay talked more about other options.
"The way to make it a football play is, number one, allow the defense to score, so really adopt a college procedure that says if you block a kick, or if you stop a two-point play and then the defense happens to get control of the football, that they can score," McKay said.
"I think there was a lot of consensus to the idea of the alternative," McKay continued. "The choice would be, if you decide you want to go for two, you ask that the ball be placed at the one-and-a-half-yard line. If you want to go for one, kick the extra point, we'll make the snap at 15."
A decision on how to change the extra point should be happening soon.
"There's a movement to want to change and want to change this year," McKay said. "The charge, I think, to us as a competition committee was come back with a recommended proposal, do it in the next 30 days and give everybody a chance to look at it - vote on it - in May."
The committee could create several options, but McKay expects the group will present only one.
"We could end up with alternatives, but I think that the object would be to take the coaches' feedback today - we literally recorded every single team's ideas, [will] work it through, understand all the unintended consequences, come up with a proposal, share it with all the teams, share it with the coaches, and then put something forward," McKay said.