The NFL's decision to move extra points from the 2-yard line back to the 25-yard line resulted in four Week 1 misses, half as many as the league saw all of last season. One of the kickers to fail on the 33-yard point-after attempt was Bengals kicker Mike Nugent, who wasn't shy about voicing his objection to the rule change.
Bengals’ Mike Nugent thinks NFL wants kickers to ‘fail more’ with new extra point rule
The kicker was one of four to miss on extra points in Week 1.
Aaron Doster-USA TODAY Sports
“There’s only one reason they moved it back -- they want us to miss more,” he said, via the Cincinnati Enquirer. “Whoever came up with the rule got what they wanted.”
In Week 1, kickers hit on 71 of 75 extra point attempts. The three others who missed were San Diego’s Josh Lambo, Jacksonville’s Jason Myers and Houston’s Randy Bullock.
That 94.7 percent mark is a dropoff from the 99 percent clip that kickers connected on the previous five seasons and right in line with the 93 percent mark they made from 33 yards over that same time period (those numbers, along with many more, can be found in this excellent breakdown of the new rule). During the preseason, kickers made 93 percent of their 33-yard point-after attempts.
Nugent's miss came in the third quarter of the Bengals' 33-13 home win over the Raiders when defensive lineman Justin Tuck blocked the attempt.
“That’s just part of my job -- a part I hate about my job -- but I think it’s one of those things that they’re getting what they want,” Nugent said. “I don’t like the rule because - I could be wrong -- but I don’t know of any rules that have been changed to make guys fail more.”
Defensive players would likely disagree with Nugent, though it does seem what he’s really taking issue with is rules being implemented to make offensive players fail.
Either way, this is the new lay of the land. Nugent might not like it, but that’s not going to prevent him from having to attempt 33-yard extra points the rest of the year.
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