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This offseason, the NFL altered the point after touchdown in order to make one of the game's most boring plays a little more exciting.
The extra point was converted at a rate of 99 percent last year when it was merely a 20-yard attempt with the ball being placed at the 2-yard line. This year, PATs are now being kicked from the 15-yard-line with two-point conversions remaining at the 2-yard-line.
Instead of an easy point, PATs are now essentially 33-yard field goal attempts, and we've already seen the rule change have a significant impact. Week 1 saw four extra points failed in 75 attempts, with one blocked for Bengals kicker Mike Nugent in addition to misses for the Texans' Randy Bullock, Jaguars' Jason Myers and Chargers' Josh Lambo.
Here's the Nugent blocked kick from Week 1:
Don't claim to know NFL plays. My impression is that on PAT, you block in/down. Was Nugent's PAT block on Winston? pic.twitter.com/CDdfrHtc53
— Josh Kirkendall (@Josh_Kirkendall) September 18, 2015
While many believe the new rule was made to add excitement, Nugent believes the rule was made to make sure kickers fail more often, as he told Jim Owczarski and Paul Dehner Jr. of the Cincinnati Enquirer.
"It's a rule that was changed to make players fail more, which I just don't [get]," Nugent said. "This is an offensive-driven league. Everyone wants to see points. Everyone wants to see 65-64. But to change a rule to make less points, it just confuses me, and I completely just disagree with it."
The NFL obviously wants there to be some added excitement with the PAT, but I don't think the idea was to make kickers fail more. And frankly, kickers should be able to make 33-yard kicks consistently, and if they can't, maybe they're the ones who need to be looking in the mirror.
The league doesn't want kickers to fail more. They simply want to take the most boring play out of football and add a little excitement to it by making the kick longer and also encouraging teams to go for two points more frequently.