How The NFL's New Scoring System Will Work If They Eliminate The Extra Point

In his monthly blog post, Green Bay Packers CEO Mark Murphy detailed the potential rule changes that will be voted on by league owners later this month.

The most interesting tidbit: There's a specific proposal to eliminate the extra point.

Here's how it would work.

After you score a touchdown, you have the option to kick off or go for two:

• If you kick off, you get 7 points
• If you go for two and convert it, you get 8 points
• If you go for two and don't convert it, you get 6 points

To think about it another way: You don't have to kick extra points anymore, they just automatically count as one point.

This is the least-disruptive proposal for eliminating the extra point. It doesn't create any new scoring scenarios. It doesn't substantially change the statistics on when it's rational for an NFL team to go for two.

It's more of a time saver than anything else. We no longer have to see kicking teams trot out there, make a gimme field goal, and run back.

There were some wild ideas for what to do with the extra point when Roger Goodell first floated the thought that it could be eliminated in January. Some wanted the kick moved back 10 yards. Others wanted to make the player who scored the touchdown kick the extra point.

This proposal isn't as radical as those, but it fixes the central problem - that kicking an extra point that is converted 99.8% of the time is a useless exercise.