It’s Thanksgiving, and Lucy van Pelt tosses a football in the air.
She eventually puts the ball down in the placeholder position and awaits Charlie Brown’s kick. The boy in the yellow shirt with the black squiggle runs up as he mentally prepares himself to boot the pigskin.
As always, Lucy picks up the ball at the last possible second, and Charlie falls on his back humiliated and defeated. Charlie Brown is fictitious, but the way this NFL season is going, this scene is essentially a documentary.
In Week 11 of the 2016-17 NFL campaign, there was a kicking malfunction or at least a semblance of a glitch. In the first half of the Sunday games, seven extra points were either blocked or missed outright. The eventual total of 12 missed kicks in that particular week was more than the entire 2014 season.
The reason for these woes is that to start the 2015 season, the NFL moved the kick from the 2-yard line to the 15. The 5-percent drop in made extra points may seem like a problem, but it’s really a net positive.
Kicking is important, but damn is it boring. In the past, the extra point and field goals closer than 40 yards were automatic and the time to make your way to the cupboard for more snacks. Now, they’re both must-watch television.
The increase in difficulty that comes with the extra points has affected field goal kicking as there are no more gimmes. Placekickers can no longer warm up on these chip shots. Every kick is critical.
What this has also accomplished is the creation of a new coaching strategy and an incentive to go for two points instead of just one. The rate of going for two has almost doubled, and teams trying to block the kick have more motivation because there’s a higher likelihood they can block it and take the ball to the opposite end zone for two points.
This happened just a few weeks ago when the Denver Broncos blocked the New Orleans Saints’ kick and took it to the house for two points and eventually won the game 25-23.
The added stress for kickers and increased room for decisions by coaches create compelling moments that never would have been seen beforehand.
There are a lot of problems with football right now. Fortunately, field goal kicking is not one of them.
With that said, there are some drawbacks of the new rule. Just look at Blair Walsh, the NFL’s Charlie Brown.
“Teams with bad kickers are certainly punished by the new extra-point rule,” the Ringer’s Rodger Sherman wrote. “For example, the Vikings: Blair Walsh was one of the worst kickers in the league this season, hitting just 75 percent of his field goals, tied for third worst in the NFL, and also missing four of 19 extra points, putting him last in the league in extra-point percentage. So the Vikings cut him.”
Maybe this rule isn’t great for everyone — looking at you, Blair — but it certainly is for the viewer watching at home.
Just make sure to get some snacks and your bathroom breaks in during the newest Geico commercial, not the extra points.
gigottfr@indiana.edu
@gott31
