The extra point is the nonalcoholic beer of football : nobody asked for it in the first place ; nobody has ever gone to a game for one ; nobody really wants it around ; but since it doesn't do much harm , it's hung around for decades now . NFL Total Access's Rich Eisen called the extra point the "penny" of the NFL , and that too seems pretty appropriate .

But the extra point's time may be nearing an end . ( Nonalcoholic beer , alas , is a separate barnacle . ) NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said on Monday that he could envision a time when the extra point no longer has a place in the NFL .

Goodell called the extra point "almost automatic ," and he's not wrong . For 2013 , kickers attempted 1 ,183 extra points . Know how many they missed ? Five . No kicker missed more than one extra point in the entire season . That's a success rate of 99 .6 percent for a part of the game nobody would miss anyway . . . well , except for the kickers , and the networks and sponsors who get an extra commercial break wedged in there before the kickoff .

"Are there any plays in the game that really are not consequential ?" Goodell said . "You want to add excitement with every play ."

Under consideration : a new scoring system that would award seven points for a touchdown . However , if a team wishes , it can go for an eighth point . . . with the caveat that if the attempt fails , the team actually loses a point and drops back to six points . It's basically the same system as now , with the presumption that an extra point would be made .

"You want to be careful mandating a rules change . is that often gonna discourage people from looking for two ?" Goodell said , saying he wants to avoid "unintended consequences" of a hasty change .

Other options not mentioned might be keeping the extra point but moving the kicking spot farther back , or offering more point values for farther-distance kicks , but that's starting to go into circus-game territory .

The Competition Committee meets in March , this also might be a theme of discussion , though any implementation is likely years away . 

article source: Yahoo Sports