Roger Goodell: NFL is considering getting rid of extra points

The extra point has become such an automatic play in football that Roger Goodell says the league is considering abolishing it.

Goodell says the league’s Competition Committee hears a lot of ideas for changes to the league’s rules and considers all of them. One change the committee seems like it will strongly consider is getting rid of extra points.

Goodell believes extra points are “almost automatic” and “not consequential” because they are so easy to make.

“I believe we had five missed extra points this year out of 1,200 some odd (attempts). So it’s a very small fraction of the play, and you want to add excitement with every play,” Goodell said in an interview with NFL Network’s Rich Eisen Monday.

“So there have been some proposals. 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.”

Rather than eliminate the extra point entirely, why not make it more challenging if you want to add excitement to the play? I say you move the extra point back to the 20-yard line so that an extra point is a 37-yard kick. I also think they should give teams the ability to make a 2-point conversion with two options: scoring from the 2-yard line as it is now, or having a kicker attempt a field goal from the 35-yard, which would make it a 52-yard kick.

Don’t eliminate extra points; make them more difficult.