NFL may abolish PATs

[Gelston]

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told the NFL Network that the league's competition committee could consider abolishing the PAT.

"The extra point is almost automatic," Goodell told NFL Network. "I believe we had five missed extra points this year out of 1,200 some odd [attempts]. So it's a very small fraction of the play, and you want to add excitement with every play."

Goodell said one suggested proposal involved a touchdown being worth seven points instead of six, with the potential for an extra play from scrimmage that would yield an eighth point. However, "if you fail, you go back to six [points]," Goodell explained.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/10324658/roger-goodell-says-pats-abolished

I can see the reasoning and it makes sense to me and PATs are generally fairly automatic, so it can be a sort of pointless risk to the health of the players. It will get rid of trying to fake the PAT to go for the 2 point conversion but how often do you see that anyways? Last time I saw one was due to a bad snap. I can agree with their reasoning, but it also seems like yet another change to the traditional formula. Nothing set in stone now, however. We'll see how it goes.

[Methais]

Sounds pretty stupid to me.

[Latrinsorm]

It's a smart move for two reasons:

1. The NFL has to adapt to the recent revelations about brain damage, especially from subconcussive impacts.
2. Shortens the real time length of a game, especially important as reviews become more prevalent.

[subzero]

They've brought this up before. I don't think it'll happen, but with Goodell at the helm, who knows?

[Gelston]

I hope they don't. Right after a TD is a good time for a strategic piss break while they do the field goal and set up for the kickoff.

[Tgo01]

They should make the extra point more difficult to get. Like increasing the distance from where the kicker kicks from, making him kick at an odd angle and open pits of gators and crocodiles between him and the ball.

[Tisket]

How else will scrawny kids who are good at kicking get a shot at NFL glory? Poor wee kickers.

[Gelston]

I kind of like the idea of a TD being an automatic 7, with the 2 point conversion being possibly, but failure leading to the loss of a point. Sometimes crazy crap DOES happen where a PAT gets blocked and it has game win/loss implications, but that is exceedingly rare. I guess this would get rid of the very rare 1 point safety in the NFL also.

[Danical]

It sounds like the real reason they want to remove the PAT is because PATs ruin the pacing or 'excitement' of play.

Personally, I think long field goal attempts are exciting. This would never happen, but I think it would be interesting, strategically, if you allowed PATs to be placed at the 32 instead of the 2 yard line; make the 50 (32 yard + 10 endzone + 8 hold from scrimmage) yard PAT and you're awarded 2 points instead of the 1 point from 20 yard PAT.

Ideally though, I'd rather they removed the 1 point attempt entirely and force teams to go for 2 point conversions. I like the idea of putting more emphasis on goal-line defense.

[Gelston]

Well, they need to have two sorts of point afters, one with more risk that awards more then the other which is less risk and less points. Otherwise you'd hit tie games a lot more, which is the reason the 2-pt was added in the first place.

[cwolff]

From the 1990 to 2011 seasons, 22 seasons in total, there were 23,684 extra point attempts during the regular season. Of these, a total of 23,325 were successfully made for a league wide extra point efficiency rating of 98.48%.

In total, only 359 times has a Kicker missed the point after touchdowns. Breaking this number down further, we found that 103 were blocked while kickers missed 256 straight out.

Might as well dump it. I'm with G though. Let them go for a +1 or -1 conversion based around a 7 point TD.

[Tgo01]

Might as well dump it. I'm with G though. Let them go for a +1 or -1 conversion based around a 7 point TD.

I wonder how many of those missed attempts even affected the outcome of the game. Like did the team that missed the extra point lose by 20 points anyways? Did the team end up winning the game with a 10 point lead?

[cwolff]

I wonder how many of those missed attempts even affected the outcome of the game. Like did the team that missed the extra point lose by 20 points anyways? Did the team end up winning the game with a 10 point lead?

That's a great question. How many PAT's change the outcome of a game. This is all I could find about it from a game in 2003. In this case it meant not going to overtime and they still may have lost the game.


The Saints entered Week 16 of the 2003 season with a 7-7 record facing off against the 4-10 Jacksonville Jaguars. Nearing the end of the game with the Jaguars holding a 20-13 lead the Saints were down to their last chance with seven seconds remaining on their own 25 yard line.

In what would be known as the River City Relay, the Saints QB Aaron Brooks tossed the ball 42 yards down field to Donte Stallworth, who then lateralled the ball to Michael Lewis, who then lateralled the ball to Duece McAllister, who then lateralled to Jerome Pathon who after receiving the ball at the Jaguars 24 yard line rushed the ball into the end zone setting up the game-tying extra point.

Kicker John Carney lined up the all but assured point after touchdown attempt and upon the snap hit a dead push with the ball missing the uprights wide right. The Saints lost the game 20-19 and were eliminated from playoff contention.

It does matter in College Football though. At least it matters more. I wonder if the NCAA would eliminate it if the pros do.

[Parkbandit]

I kind of like the idea of a TD being an automatic 7, with the 2 point conversion being possibly, but failure leading to the loss of a point. Sometimes crazy crap DOES happen where a PAT gets blocked and it has game win/loss implications, but that is exceedingly rare. I guess this would get rid of the very rare 1 point safety in the NFL also.

That's too complicated for my simple brain to bet money on games.