Giants coach Tom Coughlin says the NFL went in the wrong direction in its preseason extra point experiment.
Coughlin says that if the idea is to make extra points a more exciting play, moving kicks back to the 15-yard line while keeping two-point conversion attempts at the 2-yard line wasn’t the right way to do it. Coughlin says the NFL should have moved all point-after attempts to the 1-yard line, to encourage coaches to go for two.
“I didn’t think much of it when it was suggested,” Coughlin said, via Conor Orr of the Star-Ledger. “There are some ways to change that part of it if the intent is to make it more exciting. I think that certainly would be one of them. I think you have to be aware of the fact that it’s a 33-yard field goal in November when the wind’s blowing and it’s snowing here and it’s… in Miami it’s 75 degrees. It’s a little different in different parts of the country. You do have to be aware of that. I would say probably the ball will stay at the two, extra points. But if you really want to make it interesting put it at the one.”
Coughlin makes a good point: If the ball were spotted at the 1-yard line, NFL coaches would be much more tempted to go for two more often, on the theory that a run up the middle is more likely to be successful from a yard away than two yards away. (And additionally under the theory that a pass is more likely to be successful when the defense has to stack the line of scrimmage to stop a run up the middle.)
The NFL is expected to make some change to the extra point rule, and probably sooner rather than later. Coughlin’s idea of moving the ball to the 1 may make more sense than the preseason experiment of moving the ball to the 15.