It's time for the National Football League to abandon the point-after try. Think hard: when was the last time you saw an NFL placekicker miss a PAT? Yeah, it happens; in fact, if you watched every game this season, you saw 18 missed PAT's... out of 1,128 attempts. That's a 98.4% success rate. The PAT almost never affects the outcome of the game and is the most routine, boring play in football except for when the winning quarterback takes a knee with 14 seconds left in the game.

"Okay," you are saying, "I am convinced that watching a PAT is about as suspenseful as watching James Bond get strapped into the evil genius' death machine. I personally pass the time during PAT attempts rooting around in the refrigerator and/or my nose. But doesn't it seem as though there should be something to replace it?"

You are correct. The supposed purpose of the PAT is to introduce variance in scoring: if Team A and Team B both score four touchdowns, but Team A makes 3 PATs while Team B makes 2 PATs, then Team A wins 27-26. But today's NFL placekickers are so good that the PAT has become a formality -- when a team scores a touchdown, everyone watching thinks, "Seven points." I propose that the NFL steal the only good idea the now-defunct XFL ever had and make the scoring team run or pass the ball in from the two-yard line. A successful attempt would score one point. Because teams would succeed far less often, games could be won or lost depending on a team's ability to convert the extra point. Think about it: suppose it's late in the game and your team, down 25-18, scores a touchdown to make it 25-24. Nowadays you would head for the bathroom, confident that your placekicker would nail the extra point to tie it up. But if your team has to put the ball in the end zone to tie the game, you would be aquiver with anticipation and excitement. The PAT would be exciting again!

"That sounds good," you are saying, "but what you are suggesting is the same as today's two-point try. What would we do to replace that?"

That's easy. To go for two, a team would have to run or pass the ball in from further out -- maybe the six-yard line or whatever. Wouldn't that be fun to watch?

You're good and goddam right it would be, mister!

+posted by Lawrence @ 12/28/2003 11:58:00 PM