It's basically become an automatic — as automatic as there is in football, really all the way down to the high school level.
With the advent of kicking specialists, kicking camps and guys that just practice kicking for hours upon hours in recent years, the extra point has become quite the formality in football.
So NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is considering doing away with the extra point, well sorta, anyway.
Goodell is reportedly considering awarding seven points for a touchdown, but giving the option for an eighth point by "going for two" with the risk of dropping back down to six points if you miss the attempt. Goodell said there were more than 1,200 extra point attempts in the NFL this season, and only five were missed. Of those five, four were blocked. Kickers just simply don't miss extra points anymore, and they shouldn't given the fact it's a 20-yard field goal centered between the hash marks.
It seems a bit odd to even consider removing the play since it's been around forever and just seems like it's the way it should be, but sometimes change is good. Kickers would still be valuable, especially since many can routinely hit 50-yard field goals nowadays, where maybe 10 years ago, that was a really big deal. It won't be long before someone hits a 70-yarder.
So maybe it is time to do away with the 20-yard variety.
