Placekickers aren’t the only players who would see their playing time shrink if the NFL does away with the extra point.
There’s also the long snappers, who would get fewer opportunities to show their skills in a league with fewer kicking. One long snapper has shared his thoughts about NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s announcement that the league was going to explore eliminating the extra point.
Redskins long snapper Nick Sundberg, whose desire to get all the snaps he could kept him in a game after breaking his arm, said that he agrees with the idea that the extra point should no longer be virtually automatic, but scoffed at the notion that it should disappear from the game entirely.
“That’s just good old headlines by Roger, I think,” Sundberg said on 106.7 The Fan, via Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post. “I don’t know. He says he wants to make the league more exciting, or he wants to make every play more exciting. Listening to you guys and I’ve heard this before too: move [PATs] back. I agree. Don’t make it a gimme. Move it back, back it a 50-yard field goal, 45, 40, whatever you want. But don’t just get rid of it entirely. I think that’s absolutely ridiculous.”
Moving the kick back to make it more difficult and, perhaps, make going for two more appealing is an idea that should be part of any discussion of the future of the extra point because, as Sundberg says, it shouldn’t be a gimme.