Roger Goodell, NFL considering eliminating extra points

The NFL and the competition committee make small changes to the rules every year, but this year, one of the potential changes would eliminate extra points entirely. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said there are proposals to eliminate extra points and the league could instead adopt a new scoring system.

“The extra point is almost automatic,” Goodell said, via NFL.com. “I believe we had five missed extra points this year out of 1,200 some odd. So it’s a very small fraction of the play, and you want to add excitement with every play.”

Under one proposal, a team would be rewarded an automatic seventh point on a touchdown, if they choose to accept it. Score a touchdown, take the extra point and that’s that, seven points. Teams, however, could instead opt to to forgo the automatic extra point and instead go for two. The two-point try would be the same as it is currently. If converted the team would receive eight points with a failed try netting six total points.

Goodell said there are still some issues to work through with the proposals, including the question of whether or not a team would be less likely to go for two. That doesn’t seems to be a significant issue as extra points are close to automatic as is. According to NFL.com, 99.1 percent of extra points have been converted since 2004. Teams would still have the option of going for two when they need to late in games, which is when the majority of conversion attempts in the NFL happen.

While the change would be a significant one if it happens, it would likely have a minimal impact on the game itself and could help shorten the length of the television broadcast.

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