NFL listens to Bill Belichick for once, considers eliminating the extra point
One of the guys who has been in the league the longest is getting listened to by the NFL front office. Bill Belichick is being listened to.
No, it's not about Wes Welker's hit on Talib, we're talking PATs here.
Belichick has been complaining for years about how he believes the extra point is a non-play in the NFL, and how he thinks it should be either eliminated or a harder play.
He first got into this a couple years ago when the new kickoff rules were put in place. Back in August of 2011, Belichick had this to say on WEEI:
Via ProFootballTalk:
“Philosophically, plays that are non-plays shouldn’t be in the game,” Belichick said, via Mike Reiss of ESPNBoston.com. “I don’t think it is good for the game. Extra points, when you’re up to the 99 percent range in extra points it’s not a play. Let’s move the ball back to the 15-20 yard line and not make it a tap in. Make them kick it. Same thing with the kickoff return, if you’re just going to put the ball on the 20, put the ball on the 20.”
He brought up the topic again earlier this month.
"I would be in favor of not seeing it be an over 99 percent conversion rate,” Belichick said. “It’s virtually automatic. That’s just not the way the extra point was put into the game. It was an extra point that you actually had to execute and it was executed by players who were not specialists, they were position players. It was a lot harder for them to do. The Gino Cappellettis of the world and so forth and they were very good. It’s not like it is now where it’s well over 99 percent. I don’t think that’s really a very exciting play because it’s so automatic.”
Speak twice and you shall be received, I guess.
Earlier today, the news came out from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell that the league is considering Belichick's idea, though they did not quite put it that way. However, the reasons Goodell gave were quite similar to Bill's.
Via ProFootballtalk:
“The extra point is almost automatic,” Goodell said. “I believe we had five missed extra points this year out of 1,200 some odd (1,256-for-1,261, to be precise). So it’s a very small fraction of the play, and you want to add excitement with every play. There’s one proposal in particular that I’ve heard about. 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, so if you fail, you go back to six.”
Bill seemed to lean more towards making the actual point after attempt harder, but did say that any non-plays shouldn't be in the game in the first place. I highly doubt the league is going to dial it back to the 60s and not allow kickers to kick the extra point, and I doubt they will move the PAT attempt back all the way to the 20 yard line or something.
Still, the proposal Goodell talks about seems to make a lot of sense. There really is no point to that PAT, and as we saw as Patriots fans with Rob Gronkowski, there is a marginal amount of risk of injury that is simply not worth the play that fans typically use as a time to go the bathroom or get more beer.
Kickers will likely not be pleased about this. They only get to do three things as it is, and the NFL could also consider completely eliminating kickoffs sometime in the future. Leaving them just the silly old field goals.
What do you think about
