After the touchdown, do you go for one, or two...or NONE?

I'm excerpting this section of Peter King's Monday Morning Quarterback article verbatim (the whole thing is its usual exceptional self - definitely take the time to read it!) because it brings up a brilliant thought that had never occurred to me, and frankly, I'm kicking myself for not having thought of it first!

Imagine this scenario, painted for me by Indianapolis coach Chuck Pagano:

The Colts score a touchdown to go up nine points with 45 seconds left in the game. Now Pagano has to decide whether to go for the point-after touchdown, basically a 33-yard field goal, or to go for two, from the 2-yard line.

Or, as Pagano suggested, neither.

“Because the defense can score on the PAT or two-point conversion now, why would I go for either one?” Pagano told me. “Why wouldn’t I just take a knee and not go for anything?”

Suppose, Pagano went on, he tried to kick the PAT to go up 10, and it’s blocked and returned for a defensive point. Or the Colts went for two, it was fumbled or picked, and returned for a two-point play by the defense. Then the Colts would be up by either eight or seven—and have to kick off to a team that now would have a chance to tie the game and force overtime.

              So imagine a team, late in a game, up by four or nine, lining up to go for two and  then the quarterback simply takes a knee to kill the play. I’m not saying it positively will happen. But I am saying it makes zero sense for a team up four or nine in the last minute or so to attempt either the one- or the two-point conversion. There’s nothing to gain. That’s Pagano’s opinion. Chip Kelly’s too.

            “We felt that way at Oregon, because the defense could score points,” the Eagles coach said.

“I think you’ll see a change in the mentality, with more thought being put into the fact that the defense can return it now, and what impact that has,” Mike Pettine of the Browns said. “We already have a chart made.”

On our training camp trip, The MMQB asked head coaches if they planned to treat the PAT any differently this year with the line of scrimmage moved from the 2 to the 15-yard line—and with defenses now being able to score either one or two points on a failed conversion try returned to the far end zone. We got no sense that there would be a mass change from the one- to two-point tries, and only a few echoed what Green Bay coach Mike McCarthy told me: In some games, depending on the defensive matchup, he could see the Packers going for two after every touchdown.

            But most coaches were like Kelly. “The percentage in kicking from the 2 versus kicking from the 15, I think, goes from about 99.6 percent to 95.5 percent,” said Kelly, referring to the percentage of extra-point success in 2014, versus the percentage of field goals made from the low 30-yard-yard area. “The league wanted to encourage coaches to think about going for two, and I said you needed to change where you went from two from. [Kelly proposed moving the two-point line of scrimmage from the 2 to the 1-yard line.] I said, ‘It’s been on the 2-yard line and people haven’t gone for two, so why moving it back and changing four percentage points do you think that’s going to make a coach go for two?’ I don’t see the system really moving people much to go for two.”

            Two other factors: Tom Coughlin of the Giants said part of the hesitancy in going for two is the risk of injury, and that would have been exacerbated if the league put the two-point line at the 1. “Do we need four, five extra full-speed plays every game by putting the ball at the 1 and enticing people to go?” Coughlin said. “I don’t think so. Who is going to play in December if these things are allowed to accumulate? You keep a pitch count. Well, you keep a snap count, too.”

            But there will be more two-point tries, particularly if the defense jumps offside on the one-point tries. That means teams will have a choice whether to take a five-yard penalty and put the PAT line of scrimmage at the 10-yard line, or go half the distance, from the 2 to the 1, and try a one-yard two-point play. “I can choose to say, I’m going for two now,” said Houston’s Bill O’Brien. Several coaches echoed that.

            The opposite of that scenario actually played out in Week 1. The Chargers scored a touchdown in the fourth quarter to go up five points on the Lions, 26-21. San Diego lined up to go for two but committed a delay of game and had to move back five yards. Coach Mike McCoy opted to try the 38-yard PAT (rather than a 7-yard two-point try), and Josh Lambo's kick was no good. It's a good example of the little strategic decisions that the longer PAT now forces coaches to make.