The NFL has finally realized that it's time to fix the extra point. NFL spokesman Peter King relayed some of the league's ideas in his weekly column, confirming what we all widely assumed: the status quo will be tweaked, the revolution remains on hold.The proposals getting the most support are predictably bland: move the extra point line back 15 yards or so to make extra points a 9-out-of-10 chance instead of a 996-out-of-1,000 proposition. This is just what the NFL doesn't need: another complicated rule with potential for delays and confusion as referees and coaches confer on where the ball should be spotted for the conversion attempt. (Sure, this sounds simple, but anyone that has watched an NFL game knows that even the most basic of tasks result in protracted delays.)
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The result will be, at best, a marginal improvement. Fortunately for the NFL and everyone who cares about it, the best idea on how to fix the extra point is already out there. Like most great ideas, it's simple and elegant, yet profound in its impact. Here it is:Whoever scores the touchdown has to kick the extra point.This is not my idea. It's been floating around for a while. The furthest back I can find is a 2011 ProFootballTalk post in which Michael David Smith wrote, "I've also heard it suggested that the real way to make extra points interesting is to require the player who scored the touchdown to kick the extra point." Smith resurrected the idea last October in a post about possible extra point solutions, in which he called this idea "the wacky option that has no chance of being adopted but would be a lot of fun to watch."This idea is not that wacky. It's a classic example of so-called "traditionalists" drawing an arbitrary line in time to demarcate the status quo. Before kicking specialists, random players did the deed instead.More to the point, I hate the "it'd be fun; it'll never happen" sentiment so goddamn much. The NFL in particular has lost sight of this in a hilariously grandiose way, but the whole point of sports is to be fun! In the absence of being incredibly harmful to an athlete's health *tugs at collar nervously* rules are in place to make the game as fair and fun as possible. This rule would be very fair, and also incredibly fun.At the very least, the NFL should try it as an experiment during the preseason. If it fails miserably, there's no harm done and we all get an enjoyable Vine of Anthony Fasano doinking a kick off a teammate's helmet. If it succeeds, it could make the NFL significantly more fun to watch, and even inject some whimsy into an otherwise fine-tuned choreography.I get that the NFL will almost certainly not do this, because you don't mess with a $6 billion product unless you absolutely have to. I say we demand more from the rule-setters. Experiment. Have a sense of adventure. Try something different. Let them kick.