Fifty years ago, the NFL moved the goalposts from the goal line to the back of the end zone. It was a big deal, adding 10 yards to every field goal attempt.
Back in those days, a successful kick from 40 yards out was impressive — especially since most kickers used the toe and not the instep of the foot to kick the ball.
Nowadays, 40 is a chip shot and 50 is becoming no big deal. It feels inevitable that someone will make a field goal from 70 yards out — which would nearly match the range of Gus, the field-goal kicking donkey.
To try a 70-yarder, the offense needs to get only to its own 47 yard line. For a 60-yarder, the opponent’s 43 is the magic number. And so, as kickers get better and better, it becomes easier and easier to get in position for three points.
Which leads to the question in the headline to this blurb. Will the NFL make it harder to convert field goals?
There are two ways to do it. Raise the crossbar, or shrink the gap between the uprights.
Making field goals tougher to convert would encourage teams to go for it (or punt) more often. It also would inject some drama into a play that has become perfunctory.
That’s really the issue. The kicks carry little uncertainty. The misses make each kick more compelling. When guys are banging the ball through the three-sided rectangle from 50 or more yards on a regular basis, each kick is far more exciting if/when there’s a greater sense of doubt that the ball will hit the target.
The easiest way to do that is to shrink the target. Through two weeks, 39 field goals of 50 yards or longer have been attempted. A whopping 35 have been made — nearly 90 percent.
It’s too easy. The kickers are too good. And the answer for kickers being too good at their jobs could be making the job harder than it already is.
