RIP PAT?

It's hasn't been all cream cheese for Marcol in recent years. According to wiki:

 

On Feb. 14 ... wonder if that was coincidental.

 

A quantitative take on the behavioral aspects of the issue:

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/66907676/roger-goodell-nfl-extra-points-create-interesting-dilemma

Pretty nice take. The gain-framing vs. loss-framing stuff is something one of my students is very interested in.

 

You know, I get that. I'm just not sure Roger Goodell is using this as one big psychological experiment.

 

Funny you should post that. John Carney speaks out against eliminating the PAT, in part because of that play.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/10336442/flem-file-extrra-points-not-expendable

 

The 7-yard placekick snap isn't a rule, it is simply a convention which has developed over the years. There's no rule saying the holder couldn't kneel 25 -- or 2 -- yards behind the LOS if he wanted to. But there's no reason saying a rule couldn't be put in requiring a holder for place kick to kneel at least 12 yards behind the LOS. There are already several other rules requiring refs to make snap judgements whether players are particular yardage distances ahead or behind of the line (the ineligible-receiver downfield rule, the intentional-grounding rule).

One play equals one play.

Yep

Yep, although presumably you would want to satisfy whatever compulsory-play requirement was put in for specialists pretty early in the game.

Yep

Because kickers in particular are players who have dramatic impact on the outcome of games without being "football players." NFL roster sizes are such that virtually all special-teams players other than snappers, holders, kickers and returners play other positions during the game. Maybe in college with 100-man home rosters it might be an issue, but not in the NFL.

Actually, this rule wouldn't have nearly the effect it would have had in the 1970s or 80s -- the pencil-neck-geek exchange-student soccer player from Lower Slobovia screaming 'I Keek A Tocuhe Down" has pretty much disappeared completely from the sport; the huge huge majority of college and NFL kickers (and for that matter snappers and holders) are guys who actually did play a 'football position' earlier in their careers in high school. Nobody would be running out Garo Yepremian to play flanker.

I dunno. We'll see. One thing is sure, if these guys were required to take part in an actual scrimmage play, most coaches would eventually figure out some way to make them at least marginally useful in such a capacity.

But the bottom line is if you give all these guys -- snappers, holders, kickers -- other duties during the game, even trivial ones, their efficiency at the main job may be diminished a bit from the current clockwork-like precision -- 99.6% conversion -- down to a more merely mortal 95% or so.

 

If you legislate that a kicker or long snapper has to play another position, you're weakening that position. And you're weakening the game.

 

Of course.

In the last 20 years, rules have been put in prohibiting defensive players on placekick attempts from hitting the center before they have a chance to stand up (having long-snapped in my life I can attest 'blasting the snapper' used to be a tactic used by every single football team in the world), from leaping up on the legs or backs of teammates to block kicks, and then, even leaving their feet at all in an attempt to block the kick, all of which have combined to raise PAT conversions from "effectively" automatic to "all but entirely" automatic, which is pretty much the whole problem here.

The idea isn't to drag PAT conversion rates down to hooterville-high school levels of 70-80 percent, but down into the 90s, so missing a PAT isn't a once-every-five years event but a once-a-month or so event.