One more time: Why NFL teams go for two when down eight points late

Greg Auman

NFC South Reporter

This is not a new argument.

We want to explain to any lingering doubters why it’s smart for a football team to go for two after scoring a touchdown late in a game to pull within eight points. Yes, an extra point puts the team down seven, and then another TD and another extra point would tie the game and give the team a chance to win in overtime. 

Nevertheless, the team should go for two.

“The math has been clear for so long, and been presented by so many writers, that this topic is essentially beating a dead horse,” reads an article written by Football Perspective eight years ago. 

If it was beating a dead horse in November 2015, why is it still a debate? What’s next, an edgy story about how cigarette smoking might be bad for your health? A think piece on how seat belts save lives? 

The problem is that football can lean too much into conventional wisdom, and that wisdom really can and should change over time.

Here’s the logic in a nutshell: You’re down 14 points, and scoring touchdowns and kicking extra points twice only gets you to overtime, and the goal is to win the game, not make it to overtime and give yourself a coin-flip chance of winning. If you go for two the first time and make it, another touchdown and extra point would allow you to win in regulation. If you go for two the first time and fail, you can still score a touchdown and go for two and tie the game.

And since the NFL shifted to longer extra points in 2015, the math is impressively close: a success rate of about 47.5% going for two, and about 94% on kicking extra points. That will vary from team to team, but as a general rule, the two paths lead to the same number of points over time. This year, NFL teams converted 55.1% on two-point conversions, making an even more compelling case to go for two in these situations.

And yet when they come up in games, football fans need to have the rationale explained to them as if…

Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/one-more-time-why-nfl-teams-go-for-two-when-down-eight-points-late

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Publish date : 2024-01-31 16:53:22

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