The rule that moves the one-point extra point from the two to the 15 changes things for kickers. It also changes things for coaches.
Unless it doesn’t.
Dropping the success rate of the one-point attempt from 99-plus percent to 95 percent likely won’t be enough to persuade most coaches to defy convention. Because coaches stubbornly refuse to defy convention.
Coaches never get criticized by outsiders -- or scrutinized by their owners -- when coaches make conventional decisions that fail. In contrast, making unconventional decisions that fail will eventually make a football coach into a former football coach.
Even if the risk-reward analysis suggests that it makes sense to go for two all the time, most coaches won’t do it. Most coaches will keep going for one and going for one and going for one until the circumstances of the game make going for two the conventional move.
To get more coaches to go for two, going for two needs to become the conventional thing to do. And that won’t happen by making going for two and going for one a statistical wash. To change the conventional wisdom, going for two must become the significantly more attractive option -- which means that going for one must become the significantly less attractive option.
That means moving the two-point try to the one and/or moving the one-point try back to the point where it’s not a 95-percent certainty but something like a 75-percent proposition.
After a year with the new rule, the NFL likely will realize this, and if the NFL is intent on making the post-touchdown process more exciting, the NFL likely will make even more changes.
