NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Monday that the league would consider eliminating pro football's extra point. (NFL.com)
The extra point -- which NFL Total Access's Rich Eisen called the "penny" of the NFL -- is in the cross-hairs because it's boring. The extra point attempt is almost always successful - "almost automatic," Goodell said.
"Are there any plays in the game that really are not consequential?" Goodell told Eisen. "You want to add excitement with every play."
Patriots coach Bill Belichick took a stab at the extra point just weeks ago: "I would be in favor of not seeing it be an over 99 percent conversion rate. It's virtually automatic. That's just not the way the extra point was put into the game. It was an extra point that you actually had to execute and it was executed by players who were not specialists, they were position players. It was a lot harder for them to do. " (USA Today)
One possible new scoring system would grant seven points for a touchdown, according to Goodell. The post-touchdown kick could still be attempted -- giving a team eight points -- but if the kick failed, the team would actually lose a point, dropping the touchdown score back to six.
Another possible tweak to make the extra point more exciting would be to move the ball back so it's not so easy to get it through the goal posts.
The extra point issue will be taken up by the NFL Competition Committee.
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