Gary Seymour, sports@wolfrivermedia.com
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger thinks his team should try for 2 points every time they score a touchdown this season.
He and his coach, Mike Tomlin, were saying the same thing last preseason, too – and sure enough, the Steelers ended up trying the most 2-pointers in the NFL in 2015.
They were 8-for-11 in 2-point attempts last year, while making 32-of-34 kicks for 1 point. The Steelers finished second in their division at 10 wins and 6 losses, with their road to Super Bowl-50 ending in the conference semifinals.
Another team that hasn’t been to the Super Bowl since the 2010 season, that finished 10-6 and second in its division last year, and that advanced to the second round of the postseason, is also hoping to try more 2-point conversions this year.
The Green Bay Packers were 4-of-6 in 2-pointers last year, and the numbers say they should try more of them.
Looking to encourage teams to try more 2-point tries after touchdowns, the NFL last year moved the line of scrimmage for the point-after-touchdown kick back to the 15-yard line, turning what was a 19-yard chip shot into a more missable 33-yard attempt.
The move achieved one desired effect, as the league-wide rate for successful 1-point attempts fell to its lowest level (94.7%) since 1979. The success rate for the 2-point conversion was 0.497 – or, .958 points per attempt, compared to .947 points per kick attempt.
But the Steelers still booted the safe 1-pointer more than three times as often as they went for 2. So, the 2-pointer isn’t exactly sweeping the league yet.
The reason the Packers get brought into this one is because in last year’s postseason, they appeared to have come upon the perfect time to use the 2-pointer to steal a big win on the road.
The Packers lost 38-8 in Arizona on the next-to-last game of the regular season, but playing the same Cardinals in an NFC conference semifinal three weeks later, they were a different team. An unbelievable 96-yard last-minute drive ended with a touchdown on the final play of regulation and brought them to within 20-19 of the favored Cardinals.
To kick for a tie, and overtime? Or, try to win it outright with a gutsy 2-point conversion from 2 yards out?
If ever there was a time to try and steal a game with a 2-pointer, it seemed, it was then. Packers coach Mike McCarthy’s could have forged his name alongside some of the great riverboat gamblers in coaching history.
He also could have forged his name among the unemployed, if the Cardinals stopped them. There would have been no way to explain going for 2 points in that situation if the Packers didn’t make it and win the game. Kicker Mason Crosby was 36-for-36 kicking extra points, including the one he made to send this game into overtime. Their defense had been playing encouragingly well.
Any coach who might jeopardize a team’s deeper march into the playoffs on what are essentially the coin-toss odds of going for 2, could be considered a liability. McCarthy made the right call, and the Packers got burned by another big play in OT. Bad luck, again.
Good riddance to 2015, anyway. This is a new season. At this point, Packers fans will settle for an overtime playoff game where their offense actually gets on the field for a play or two.
The real best reason to hope that the Packers will try a lot of 2-pointers this year is that it means they’re scoring often enough to have made it an issue, and that their confidence is back enough to play to win, not to avoid losing.