At least one NFL kicker believe the National Football League in time will take the foot out of football.
“I feel eventually that they’re just going to take kicking out of the game completely, which is fine with me as long as I’m done playing,” Lions kicker Matt Prater said, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press.
Prater understands why the NFL is doing it.
“They want to make a more exciting play and give the defense an opportunity to score and
everything,” Prater said. “So I see where they’re going with it. But I’m not a huge fan.”
Prater thinks kickers who do their jobs well are being penalized for doing their jobs well.
“Guys have success with such a high percentage on the extra points you almost get punished for it for having success,” Prater said. “There’s other plays that are almost guaranteed, too, and they’re not messing with that.”
In recent years, the NFL has minimized the kicking game by making it easier to kick the ball out of the end zone, pushing the kickoff point from the 30 back to the 35. This time around, however, the NFL is making the kicking game more relevant by making the one-point PAT more difficult. While it may cause some teams to go for two more frequently, the new rule places a premium on kickers who can kick accurately from a longer distance.
So the latest rule change isn’t about taking kicking out of the game. It’s about making kicking more important to the game, by making it harder to convert on one-point tries.