The NFL Should Scrap the Extra Point, or Just Get Rid of Special Teams Altogether

Football fans are well known to be great lovers of missed extra points, so it is with great rejoicing that the nation greets the NFL's preseason experiment with having them kicked from the 15-yard line rather than the 2-yard line. The rationale behind this decision is that there's no drama in extra points that are made more than 99 percent of the time—it's a "nonplay," as Bill Belichick called it in March. Belichick, who presumably hates kickers, would like to see the extra point attempted from the 25-yard line, which would probably make it prudent for coaches to go for a two-point conversion every time.

This makes sense because most people really, really love field goals and many fans consider the plays in between kicking attempts to be basically unnecessary, but those of us who enjoy the running, passing, and tackling more than the sight of a smallish man striking an oddly shaped ball with his foot probably agree with Hall-of-Fame kicker Jan Stenerud, who wants to eliminate kicked extra points entirely. If kickers have become so skilled that extra points are now essentially automatic, wouldn't it be easier just to officially make touchdowns worth seven points?

Football is famous for constantly tweaking and refining its rules. The most famous rule change was the adoption of the forward pass in the early 20th century—which eventually transformed the game into the telegenic, offense-centric phenomenon it is today—but there has also been a quieter but profound shift in making it harder to stop wide receivers. Defensive backs may occasionally gripe that you can't lay a finger on a pass catcher now, but no one else is really complaining about quarterbacks and wide receivers piling up incredible numbers and games turning into offensive highlight reels. The league has consciously decided to embrace flexibility over tradition, in the process making its sport the most popular thing in secular America.

In 2011, the league decided to change another rule, moving up the spot from which the ball is kicked after touchdowns and at the beginning of halves by five yards. Kickoff returns feature 22 players running at full speed into each other, which naturally results in a lot of injuries; the goal of the change was to make touchbacks more common and avoid concussions and broken bones. Except now 44 percent of kickoffs result in touchbacks, creating an agonizing sequence whenever points are scored:

• TOUCHDOWN!! WHOOO! GONNA HIGH-FIVE MY BROTHER AND TEXT MY BUDDIES SOMETHING MISSPELLED ABOUT A MANNING!
• Extra point! Gonna go through the uprights, obviously, so I can grab a beer from the fridge.
• A commercial break. That's fine, I guess I'll go watch the leaves flutter down from the trees outside the yard or read my book of Rousseau essays.
• Back to FOOTBALL—no, wait, it's a kickoff that is gonna be a touchback or a return to around the 20-yard line, so I guess I'll just sit around some more and think about what to do with my dad, who probably shouldn't be living alone, but I can't ask my sister to take him in, can I? She does so much for him already. 
• Another commercial break, during which I help my eight-year-old with his Halloween costume. He's going as Jack Dorsey, one of the founders of Twitter. I don't really understand my son but I try to support him.
• OK, now we're back to the game.

The worst part of football games is how much time is spent on things that aren't actually football—the timeouts, the challenges, the penalties, the instant replays, the two-minute warnings, and, most tedious of all, the cycling of the special teams squads on and off the fields. Once upon a time kickers were inaccurate and punting before fourth down in an effort to catch the defense off guard was a relatively common tactic. But now most special team plays are routine affairs that cause lulls in the action. Extra points are stupid, of course, but short field goals aren't much more exciting, and as fond as I am of really good punts, drop-kicking the ball is clearly a vestigial aspect of the game left over from its rugby origins. It's as if football is actually two sports: one that everyone loves and has lots of catches and runs and turnovers, and one that's focused on kicking a ball and involves not only a different skill set but a different group of players.

Belichick is right: Extra points are nonplays. But so are too many kickoffs, punts, and field goals—and the excitement occasionally generated by a long return isn't worth the time it takes to play a minigame within an NFL game. Just get rid of special teams and go back to the football.

Harry Cheadle is fairly serious about this. Follow him on Twitter.