Should NFL Teams Really Pursue 2-Point Specialists?

The NFL’s long-overdue decision to alter extra-point attempts was yummy catnip for those who enjoy a healthy diet of advanced numbers with their football. And even those who treat math like whatever food or beverage they hated as a child were surely still curious about a list of questions.

How would moving point-after attempts from the two-yard line to the 15—making the boot now a 32- or 33-yard try—change strategy? Would the additional sprinkling of missed kicks result in more two-point conversion tries? Will NFL coaches suddenly become more daring, inviting some degree of risk into their lives?

Those questions have now hovered since the decision was finalized on May 19. As they so often do, questions build off each other until they lead to a sort of grand crescendo that, in this case, could change roster construction.

So get ready for this high chord: Should two-point specialists really exist now and be a thing in the NFL?

It’s a question that inevitably has centered around one man who started a mania several years ago, and you just might remember those strange times (or maybe you’ve tried to forever erase the associated Internet music from your mind).

Philadelphia Eagles head coach Chip Kelly may have been looking to lead by example when he signed quarterback Tim Tebow, hoping the league would adopt his team’s recommendation to move two-point conversation attempts to the 1-yard line. Tebow previously scored 12 rushing touchdowns over two seasons with the Denver Broncos, and four of them came from two yards or less.

Tebow isn’t an NFL quarterback with his still slow delivery featuring an “unnatural dip,” according to Jeff McLane of The Philadelphia Inquirer, who’s watched him during Eagles offseason training activities. Any thought of the Heisman winner suddenly discovering proper mechanics at 27 years old was always dreamy wish-casting.

But Tebow has value as a running back who can sort of, kind of, throw, which is why the two-point specialist discussion keeps returning to him as a case study. He can be a bulldozing short-yardage runner, and the mere threat of a pass keeps defenses honest in those situations.

While in theory that sounds inviting, the idea is still ruined by two factors even after the rules changes: pesky math and the simple impracticality of a player occupying a roster spot even though he’s used only for a seldom-called gimmick.

The position of two-point conversion attempts remains untouched, and they'll still take place from the 2-yard line. However, another head coach still wondered very publicly if specialists like Tebow will slowly be gobbled up.

“I think it will change a great deal,” Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak told Jeff Legwold of ESPN.com when asked about roster construction and the potential now for specialists to emerge. Kubiak also said he’ll dedicate additional practice time to two-point attempts, both offensively and defensively.

The league’s more creative coaches like Kelly may indeed decide to increase their two-point attempts, though only marginally. Why? Let’s consider the percentages.

Under the previous rules, kickers had converted at least 99 percent of their point-after attempts from the 2-yard line in eight of the past 11 seasons, according to Matthew Futterman of The Wall Street Journal. That stretch includes 99.3 percent in 2014 and a single-season record of 99.6 in 2013.

It had become an automatic play, and a time for the television audience to either make use of nearby facilities or order more obnoxiously grease-soaked food (deep-fried butter?). Pushing kickers back to about the 33-yard line knocks that percentage down, and there will definitely be a difference.

How much of a difference, exactly? And what does both the math and recent history have to say? Well…

Kickers still have pretty steady crosshairs, even if the distance and sample size is expanded by a few yards. In 2014, there were 10 teams with a 100 percent success rate on field goals between 30 and 39 yards. That list includes the Seattle Seahawks, Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens, all teams often battling poor weather conditions later in the season.

A 94.3 percent success rate is often cited from the league’s 2014 preseason experiment with 33-yard extra points. Of course, the eight misses then largely came from kickers who were soon released.

Still, if we entertain the possibility of a success rate as low as 94.3 percent and extrapolate it onto the 1,230 extra-point attempts from 2014, the resulting number is a significant swing. Kickers would have missed 70 attempts, as noted by SB Nation’s Rodger Sherman.

Then, quickly the significance of those misses diminishes, even if the total number is growing. Under that scenario, individual teams would average just over two misses throughout an entire season.

A point on the scoreboard is still highly likely through a conventional post-touchdown kick, just maybe a little less likely than before. That makes it difficult to see Kubiak’s vision of two-point specialists growing in number, especially when this last nail is hammered into the coffin.

Kickers can center the snap on an extra-point attempt, which brings a spike in footballs sailing through uprights. Suddenly the amount of misses during the 2014 season would have fallen to 30.

That’s plenty compared to previous years, yet still not anything drastic enough to move the strategic ground most head coaches stand on. NFL coaches crave certainty, or as much of it as possible. And there will still be more found in the standard approach after scoring a touchdown rather than lining up for two points, which came with a success rate of 47.7 since 2013, according to Neil Greenberg of The Washington Post.

The NFL is already filled with specialists who occupy roster spots and are far more meaningful than potential two-point grunts. Kicking is inherently a specialist role, with kickers and punters only playing a handful of snaps each game. Then there are return specialists, short-yardage specialists and run-stuffing specialists. Oh, and the most special of them all, special teams specialists.

Each game-day roster spot is precious and should be assigned to a player who performs a function. It’s wasteful to use one while only aiming to increase the low-percentage chances of periodically scoring an additional point.