Game-Changing Move: NFL's Extra Point Kick Shift to 15-Yard Line

On May nineteenth, twenty fifteen, the NFL makes a major announcement to the kicking portion of football, moving the extra point done after scoring a touchdown back from the two yard line to the fifteen yard line, making it a thirty three yard field goal every time you attempt an extra point. And today we're going to dive into the history of kicking and what led to this change on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History, I Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. Now. Back when football was first starting, got its name because kicking was more emphasized and you actually got more points for kicking than you did for scoring a touchdown. In eighteen eighty three, the scoring system had field goals counting as five points and touchdowns and conversions only worth four points. Then in eighteen ninety seven they raised the value of a touchdown to five points and lowered the conversion after to one point. Then in nineteen oh four they devalued the field goal to four points, and five years later, by nineteen oh nine they would have changed it to the modern three point value, and three years later they would changed the touchdown to six points, giving us the regular scoring system we have to this day. But this tells you why the game was called football rather than throwball or rushball, because it was focused on feet at the beginning, and over the years they played with where that conversion, or the point after touchdown as it is commonly known or abbreviated to PAT or extra point has been moved around. In nineteen twenty five, it was moved to the five yard line, then in nineteen twenty nine it was moved to the two yard line, and in nineteen sixty eight they moved it to the three yard line before moving it back again to the filteen yard line. Now during this time, also where the goal posts were have also changed. Originally, the goal posts were actually in the end zone or at the goal line, so wherever you were kicking from was the distance you were going to kick plus seven yards, as seven yards is of the distance between where you snap the ball and the holder holds it in the ground, which gives you the best chance of not getting blocked and still making the field goal. But in nineteen twenty seven they actually moved the field goals to the end of the end zone due to safety concerns. But Chicago Stadium where the Chicago Bears played, was too small to make this accommodation, so in nineteen thirty two they moved it back to the front until nineteen seventy four when they finally moved them officially back to the back of the end zone, adding ten yards to every field goal. Now added into the field goal is the hash marks. The hash marks are the lines on the field that are paralleled to the goal line and where the ball is spotted between plays. So if you run the ball all the way to the right, it is spotted on the right hash. If you run the ball all the way to the left, then you spot the ball on the left hash. Now this is important because certain kickers like it in different places. In the middle is usually preferred, and the wider the hashes are, the harder the field goals. And in nineteen seventy two, the NFL made the hash marks the same distance as the length of the goal post, which has also changed over the years. As before, it was twenty three feet long, but they narrowed it down to eighteen feet nine inches. That's the length of the hash marks, as well as the length of the goal post between the two uprights. Another thing that had changed Also besides the width of the goal post was the height of the uprights the two poles that go straight up. Now, this was originally twenty feet, which is pretty tall because that's twenty feet on top of the ten feet that is height that the crossbar is. Then in nineteen seventy four they actually raised it again to thirty feet before raising it in two thousand and four to thirty five feet after many issues with balls going straight over the uprights and making it hard to make a decision whether it actually went in or not. And a major development also was the slingshot goal post. Now this goal post is what you see today on the field. Previously, you would see two poles in the ground going straight up to the height designated with a crossbar at ten feet, making an h like field goal. But the sling shot field goal is what we see today, which is safer for the players as it's farther back so the players have less chance of running into it, and it has a big arc that leads up to the ten feet crossbar and holds everything up for the field goal so that there's space for the players to run out of the end zone and not run into the field as that's why the field goal has been moved previously due to players running into it when it was in the end zone or even at the back of the end zone, and they adopted this back in nineteen sixty seven. Now you still see some of the older goal posts in some lower NCAA schools or even some high schools, as field goal posts are expensive and can cost well over five thousand dollars if not more, depending on the exact dimensions you need. But the real question, after all of these changes they made to the actual field goal posts and how they kicked field goals and the scoring, is why do they make this change in the NFL to move the extra point back? And the reason was to add excitement to the game, as this one play, the point after touchdown, got to be a very boring play and was almost automatic, as in twenty fourteen, it was a ninety nine point three percent chance that the kicker would make the field goal, and it had steadily been increasing ever since. They had pushed the field goal post back to the end of the end zone, which with its lowest percentage being in nineteen seventy six at ninety percent, so it is still a very high percentage play at the three yard line at that time, but has progressively gotten better, and the reason is because of Pete Golek, who really innovated the sport. Now he was a kicker as we know it today, but previous to him making his pro football debut, it was very uncommon for kickers to use the soccer style where they stand back at an angle and run up to the ball instead of running at it straight on, and his innovation was astounding. He was selected in the twelfth round by the Buffalo Bills out of Cornell University. In his very first preseason game, he broke the field goal record kicking a fifty seven yard field goal and showed much better consistency and had a better percentage than anyone else in the league. And he continued that when he made his way into the NFL with the New York Giants, and this led to other NFL teams going after soccer kickers rather than the straight on kickers they had had before, and by nineteen eighty four there was no more straight on kickers and then last straight on field goal that was kicked was in nineteen seventy eight by Steve Cox, who was a punter filling in for the place kicker who they got injured. Now, this was the major change that led to field goal percentages being much higher in the pat being almost automatic as kickers got more specialized and were for focused because before the straight on kickers usually played different positions, but Google LAC changed everything as being a specialist in kicking, and this led to other teams having a specialist only focused on that helped increase the percentages. Now it had a gradual increase, but it increased even more after Tony Romo, who was a backup quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys who was the holder for the kicker to kick the field goal, was the backup quarterback in case they needed to do anything for a trick play or the play fell apart and you needed someone that could throw the ball. This changed after he was the backup but got into a starter role and he fumbled the ball on a playoff kick that could have won them the game and they wanted to change this position. After this, teams adopted more of the punter to be the holder, which is more commonly seen today, and this allowed teams to not only have the kicker focus on this, but the punter and kicker who are specialists can focus on just kicking all day long. You didn't have to wait for the holder, who was a actual player to come over and help with kicks, and this led to higher percentages as you could work on field goals more and more. And also with the specialization of the long snapper, who is a designated position and usually does not play another position. So the specialization of kicking game giving you three specified players helped increase the percentage of the field goal and when they first instituted this in the twenty fifteen seas, field goals dropped from ninety nine point three percent all the way to ninety four point two percent and has stayed around that same amount, around ninety four percent, and has made this extra point more exciting as we watch because we don't know if it's actually going to go in, and has made it more exciting because teams do go for two points and this has arguably made the game more exciting, especially in the games and when field goals are more important than ever now. Field goal kickers have gotten better and better every year, and they continue to get better, and it's more impressive as they start younger and younger. Being specialized as a kicker rather than a soccer player and has really changed the game as it makes football more important to this day. Now you could argue whether this is important or should ever have been done, but kicking is a part of the sport and it is very important. Without kicking, why call it football. Though the rules changes may be better or worse for us, I think taking the chance at a rule change and doing something different is always important and to make it your own. If we just did the same rules over and over and over, the game might become stagnant for us. It might not continue to grow and be the game we love to this day. There's aspects we probably don't like, but we still love the game and still sit there every Sunday and rooting for our team. And if you want to root for our team at Daily Sports History, please post on your social media saying how much you love the show. Share your favorite episode so that everyone can know that you are a sports historian learning about sports every day, and come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History.