Does this man look like a football player?

NOTE FROM MONKEYINMYMIND: As of September 29th 2008, I have officially recanted some of the comments made in this post, including the main idea that NFL Kickers are not football players.  Click here to read more about this update.

When I was a kid, we played a lot of backyard football, sometimes even with full pads, and one of my favorite backyard football rules that our neighborhood put into play concerned touchdowns and extra points. We decided that the player who scores the touchdown would be responsible for kicking the extra point (PAT) on the following play. If that person was unable to kick, then his team would be forced to instead go for two. This added an extra layer of excitement and uncertainty surrounding extra points, especially if a team happened to field a player who could actually kick.

Several decades later, I am reminded of that old backyard rule with all of the hoopla surrounding Denver Broncos Coach Mike Shanahan’s decision to go for two and the win in the final seconds of their game against San Diego in Week 2, rather than settling for a one-point PAT to tie it and hoping for a positive spin on the coin toss in overtime. Gregg Easterbrook, who writes the TMQ column for ESPN Page 2 every week of the football season, has been a long-time proponent of the two-point conversion, arguing that its statistical success rate, coupled with the benefit of doubling a team’s potential points after touchdown, make it an option that should be utitilized more frequently.

Skin Patrol, who runs the popular Washington Redskins blog Hogs Haven, has gone even further in this rather detailed post, in which he posits that not only should coaches attempt two-point conversions more often, but that they should simply go for two ALL THE TIME, using a formula based on success rates for each type of conversion attempt, specifically:

Premise 1: More points is better in the NFL.

Premise 2: The odds of successfully converting a 2PC are higher than 50% and success leads to two points.

Premise 3: The odds of successfully converting an XP are between 96% and 100% and success leads to one point.

Conclusion: Teams should (generally) go for a 2PC after scoring touchdowns.

Premise 2 and Premise 3 are actually interpretations of empirical data that certainly can be questioned, although some truths here: XP conversion rate cannot be above 100%. Assuming for the sake of argument that I am correct, that 2PC success rate is above 50%, say, 52%, and XP conversion rate is no higher than 98% (although the reasoning works at 100%) consider:

Each XP attempt is worth 1 x .98 = .98 points.

Each 2PC attempt is worth 1 x .52 = 1.04 points.

In other words, according to this argument, simply attempting a two-point conversion is a wise decision as over time, each attempt will net an additional .06 points. Since more points are, well, more points, coaches would be negligent to not attempt 2PC’s all the time.

This sounds great, but let’s see how that would manifest using some real numbers. In 2007, the Washington Redskins finished 9-7 and made the playoffs. During that season they scored a total of 34 touchdowns. If they had only kicked PAT’s throughout the entire season, they would have ended up with approximately 33 extra points. If they had instead gone for two every single time they scored a touchdown, using the statistical success rate of above of 2PC’s, they would have scored at total of 35 extra points, or two extra points over the course of an entire season by going for two instead of kicking! Hardly a sexy amount of points we’re talking here, and hardly compelling enough for most coaches to open themselves up to ridicule for opting against taking easy points with the PAT.

In addition, these statistics don’t reflect game-to-game situations. In other words, even though going for two might net an additional two points over the course of the season, success in the NFL isn’t measured by a team’s season point total. Instead it is measured by the point total in each game, so having to settle for only six points per touchdown half the time may result in additional losses over the course of the season.

So what’s my point?

My point is that this whole conversation should be moot, and I’ll explain that by asking a question: why is it that NFL teams have at least two skilled kickers on their roster? Why is it that of the 53 valuable slots available to field a competitive football club, teams fill up two of these slots with people who are not even football players?! That’s right, I’m talking about that fact that teams field kickers and punters. Why is it that one guy can’t do both jobs? Sure, you might tell me that there are many nuances to each skill, that one requires strength and speed and the other requires accuracy and uh, quickness. Whatever. I don’t care. Something tells me that if you pay a gentleman $500,000 per year to kick and punt that somehow he’ll manage.

And the teams will manage too. Perhaps they will send in the punting team less often on fourth and short, knowing that their kicker is really only good at nailing field goals and isn’t terribly accurate when it comes to downing punts within the opponents’ 10 yard line. The fact remains is that these individuals aren’t football players at all, they are merely skilled specialists who enter the field of play from time to time, praying that they don’t get hit.

Need proof that punters and kickers aren’t players? Watch below…

So in essence, my proposal is this: allow only one punter/kicker per team. They will be called on only to kick field goals and punts, not extra points. When a team scores a touchdown, the touchdown-scoring player is responsible for attempting the extra point kick. Alternatively, the team can opt to go for two if they know their guy can’t kick. This rule change would make the games much more fluid, uncertain, and dynamic, resulting in a new level of excitement, as nearly every touchdown would come with it an opportunity to score a “touchdown” again. It would also result in a new level of sophistication when it comes to play calling, clock management, game strategy, and play design, as coaches would be forced to come up with new and different schemes to score in goalline situations.

A Compromise

If my proposal above is too radical, an alternative proposal would be for teams to retain kickers and punters, but force them to really earn their pay as skilled technicians in the following way: when teams score touchdowns, the kicker must line up to kick the field goal from the spot on the field where the touchdown-scoring player entered the endzone. In other words, if the player entered the endzone from the center of the field, the kicker would get to kick basically straight on. However, if the player entered the endzone by way of the corner pylons, the kicker would have to line up just inside the sideline to score his measly one point. That might make coaches open things up and go for two a little more often, wouldn’t it?

So how about it, NFL owners?

In off-season before the 2009 season, the NFL owners will meet with the competition committee to discuss any possible rule changes. I suggest they scrap any ideas about extending the regular season to 17 or 18 games and instead institute a rule that will return the NFL to its scrappy toughguy roots.