Down with Extra Points
Why are we still doing this to ourselves?
Find me a better example of institutional inertia than the extra point in football.
How is this still a thing? It is so useless, such a routine exercise, that even after the league moved the kick a spooky 13 yards back in 2015, the success rate has still never dipped below 93%.
Before that, it tended to hover around 99%. Progress, no? Mission accomplished?
Wrong! So wrong! Still dumb. Still so very dumb.
No one looks at it as anything but the very most perfunctory play in the sport, perhaps all of sports, and yet we insist on kicking them.
Everyone buckle up, because I’m about to flip all that Tush Push rhetoric about it “not being a football play” right on its head and let you all know that as long as we’re drawing lines, the extra point is also definitely not a football play. It’s even further afield.
This is harsh — so please, kicking community, do accept this With All Due Respect — but at least the Brotherly Shove prominently features actual football players.
It shouldn’t be controversial to say that kickers are not, at least not in the same sense that linemen or quarterbacks or receivers or linebackers are.
George Will, that old chestnut, has a famous quote on America’s most popular sport, which suggests he’s not a huge fan.
“Football combines the two worst things about America: it is violence punctuated by committee meetings.”
Fair enough, but I’d like to add a third, and that’s over-specialization. It may be great for the global economy, but it’s a particularly noticeable part of football that you just don’t see in most other sports.
The NFL placekicker is specialization incarnate. He has one job. He kicks a ball, which no one but him is allowed to kick, unless you mean the punter, who’s a different guy, by the way. His job’s even easier, by most accounts.
When carrying out their regular duties, the other players are barred from making contact with either of them. They are a thing apart. No man is an island, eh? Tell that to the specialest of special teamers.
The Kicker Principle
They’re not alone, to be clear. Extreme specialization is just part of football, from the strict division between offensive and defensive players on down to the types of players on either side of the ball.
You wouldn’t want any but the most uniquely talented of athletes playing multiple positions. That all makes fantasy football more fun, though not fun enough to be actually fun, he said, emptying his bag of hot takes for the holidays.
And don’t think we forgot about you, long snapper.
Apply the kicker principle to other sports and see where it gets you.
In basketball, the equivalent of placekickers would be guys who come in to shoot free throws and get back off the court before the game starts again. Good for Shaq, sure. But no one’s advocating for that innovation, are they?
Baseball isn’t so far off. They have a strict offense-defense split too, but the kicker crossover wouldn’t even be your typical relief pitcher. More like a guy who comes in and has to throw three strikes, but the batter’s not allowed to swing. Fun!
In hockey, and I guess soccer, you’d have a penalty-shot specialist who only comes in for those plays. At least you’re using a somewhat applicable skill. But we like that the players have to take those, don’t we?
How about tennis? Why not have someone else take all your second serves? We’d cut down on double faults.
Same with golf! How’s your short game, Jerry? Don’t worry about it! The putter guy’s on it.
Lest we forget, the purpose of specialization is to let the specialist focus on their one thing, the theory being that they will become so much better at their one thing that they ultimately provide more value than if they were just good at a few things. Economies of scale, all that good stuff.
And yeah, kickers are better at their one thing than anyone else on the team. My question is: why are we clinging to their one thing?
I understand the historical timeline: first comes rugby, then football. Football borrows many of its rules from rugby, and while it adds some nifty new stuff like the forward pass, it keeps some other stuff like conversion kicks after scores.
In rugby, you’ve got two differences. First, the kicks are for 2, and the “touchdown” — a try — is 5. So the kicking is more important, especially in a sport that sees less scoring than football altogether.
Second, and more important to my example, the player who kicks must also be able to play the rest of the sport at a high level — tackling, passing, running, everything — which I personally prefer, though I don’t see the fix here as assigning Lane Johnson to kick extra points. (Not that he couldn’t. I know he could.)
While the Pro Bowl is not exactly my first choice of inspo, they’re onto something with their conversion rules. You can either go for 1 point from the 3-yard line or go for 2 from the 10.
Or — and I’m genuinely open to this — you could just make touchdowns worth 7 points and be done with it. That’s the path of least resistance.
If teams want to go for 2, they still can. Just stop going through the motions with these dumb kicks that we can’t let go of.
As far as other hills to die on, I’m also happy to share my thoughts on the word “utilize,” the texture of cottage cheese, and Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby adaptation.
‘Tis the giving season, after all.
Also, This
The NFL is no longer content to let the NBA have Christmas. Seven games will get standalone national broadcast windows this weekend, including a Thanksgiving-style triple header on the 25th.
FSU is again weighing leaving the ACC, though that should come as a surprise to exactly no one. They’re calling “special meetings” about it, though, so. Sounds serious. Hey, maybe Georgia rolls out the SEC welcome wagon on the 30th, but somehow I doubt it.
I didn’t disagree with the decision to suspend Ja Morant, even if 25 games seemed a little high. Seeing him go off on Tuesday, and against Zion Williamson no less, is a great reminder of how much better the league is when those two young stars are actually playing. They’re each troubled by different issues off the court, and I hope we get to keep talking about those two playing basketball, not the rest.
(UPDATE: Ding ding ding!) Yoshinobu Yamamoto watch is reportedly down to seven: the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, Giants, Red Sox, Blue Jays and Phillies. I’m guessing the Dodgers do it again, and that it’s for $300M+.
And finally, though it has precious little to do with sports, I was fascinated to catch up on a long-running story connected, at least in spirit, to one of the NFL’s more recognizable franchises, the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The whole reason they’re called that is because U.S. Steel — once the biggest corporation in the world — is headquartered there, and now they’re (probably) going to be bought out by a Japanese competitor.
They’re not nearly the powerhouse they used to be, but it did make me think of what you would name expansion teams now if they were based on the prevailing professions/vibes of their home cities.
The Seattle Product Managers! The Las Vegas Live Bettors! The Mexico City Unwelcome Expats! And, close to my heart, the New Jersey SantaConners.