I love the new rule on extra points, moving them back. If I were the NFL rules czar, I would have moved them back even a little farther, but this new rule is doing just what it was supposed to do. It’s added a little drama to the most boring play in pro football.
We’ve seen missed extra points play a role in dozens of games. In yesterday’s Bills-Texans game, for example, Dan Carpenter missed one that could have been pivotal – left the Bills up only 6 in the late going, with the Texans getting the ball for a chance not to tie but to win. And in both the Miami and New Orleans games yesterday, we saw PATs blocked and returned for 2 points the other way (with the Ravens, theirs was nullified by a penalty, clearing the way for the Dolphins to instead cash in on a 2-point conversion).
All of these 33-yard extra points also give us another way to measure kickers. After 13 weeks, only six kickers have attempted at least 20 of them without a miss. And at the other end, we see which kickers can’t convert 90 percent of such kickers, with Jason Myers and Blair Walsh at the bottom.
League average is 94 percent.
Here are the guys who’ve attempted at least 10 of them …
| EXTRA POINT ACCURACY | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Player | XP | Att | Pct |
| Stephen Gostkowski, NE | 43 | 43 | 100.0% |
| Mason Crosby, GB | 28 | 28 | 100.0% |
| Brandon McManus, DEN | 27 | 27 | 100.0% |
| Matt Bryant, ATL | 26 | 26 | 100.0% |
| Justin Tucker, BAL | 24 | 24 | 100.0% |
| Dustin Hopkins, WAS | 23 | 23 | 100.0% |
| Dan Bailey, DAL | 19 | 19 | 100.0% |
| Nick Folk, NYJ | 19 | 19 | 100.0% |
| Randy Bullock, NYJ | 11 | 11 | 100.0% |
| Mike Nugent, CIN | 38 | 39 | 97.4% |
| Sebastian Janikowski, OAK | 32 | 33 | 97.0% |
| Josh Brown, NYG | 30 | 31 | 96.8% |
| Ryan Succop, TEN | 25 | 26 | 96.2% |
| Kai Forbath, NO | 20 | 21 | 95.2% |
| Robbie Gould, CHI | 19 | 20 | 95.0% |
| Connor Barth, TB | 17 | 18 | 94.4% |
| Greg Zuerlein, STL | 16 | 17 | 94.1% |
| Chris Boswell, PIT | 15 | 16 | 93.8% |
| Cairo Santos, KC | 29 | 31 | 93.5% |
| Chandler Catanzaro, ARI | 42 | 45 | 93.3% |
| Phil Dawson, SF | 14 | 15 | 93.3% |
| Graham Gano, CAR | 40 | 43 | 93.0% |
| Adam Vinatieri, IND | 26 | 28 | 92.9% |
| Caleb Sturgis, PHI | 23 | 25 | 92.0% |
| Nick Novak, HOU | 21 | 23 | 91.3% |
| Steven Hauschka, SEA | 27 | 30 | 90.0% |
| Andrew Franks, MIA | 26 | 29 | 89.7% |
| Travis Coons, CLE | 17 | 19 | 89.5% |
| Matt Prater, DET | 24 | 27 | 88.9% |
| Dan Carpenter, BUF | 28 | 32 | 87.5% |
| Josh Lambo, SD | 21 | 24 | 87.5% |
| Blair Walsh, MIN | 20 | 23 | 87.0% |
| Jason Myers, JAC | 23 | 29 | 79.3% |
—Ian Allan