Bell: NFL tests potential kicking X-factors at Pro Bowl
GLENDALE, Ariz. — We may have witnessed a glimpse of the NFL's future during the Pro Bowl and this is bad news for kickers — but good news if you're looking for another layer of unpredictability.
When Adam Vinatieri misses two extra-point kicks, it's obvious that things are a bit different.
Vinatieri might someday be enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
On Sunday night, with the degree of difficulty significantly tweaked, the Indianapolis Colts kicker missed two of his four conversion kicks that equated to 35-yard field goal tries with narrower goalposts.
The NFL's competition committee has contemplated major alterations to the kicking game in the name of making the conversion kick a more exciting play, and the experimental tweaks shown on Sunday night illustrated how that could drastically change the game.
"I understand that the wheels of change are in motion and people want to change stuff," said Vinatieri, a 19th-year NFL veteran who helped Team Irvin knock off Team Carter 32-28.
"I feel bad for the young bucks who are going to have to deal with that for their whole career."
Kickers — and the coaches who must make game-management decisions — had better beware.
Let's face it: Under existing rules, extra-point kicks are too easy.
During the regular season, kickers made 99% of conversions league-wide after making 99.6% the previous season. You'd have to go back to the 1940s to find a league rate under 90%.
And with kickers getting better with more specialized training, the field goal success rate of 83.9% in 2014 is near the highest levels in history.
The NFL's competition committee has contemplated pushing owners to change the rules to make extra-point conversions more difficult, and the matter will surely be on the docket again when the league meetings come to Phoenix in March.
During a preseason experiment that went through the first two full weekends, the scrimmage line for extra-point kicks was moved to the 15-yard line. That effectively made for 33-yard extra points, and kickers nailed all but eight of 141 tries for a 94.3% success rate.
Yet narrowing the goalposts — the width was tightened from 18 feet to 14 feet — surely made a difference on Sunday night. At least for Vinatieri. The Team Carter kicker, Cody Parkey of the Philadelphia Eagles, made both of his long PAT kicks.
After his second missed PAT, Vinatieri said his holder, Bengals punter Kevin Huber, agreed that the kicks would have been good with normal goalposts.
"If this is something that's going to change," Vinatieri said, "I definitely need to start working on it."
Vinatieri said he had just five kicks in Friday's practice before pregame warm-ups.
But even with extensive practice, Vinatieri can see how the game will change for kickers if the experimental tweaks become the rule.
"I don't know if I get to go in and give my two cents about it, but I'll tell you what. The game will change a bunch," said Vinatieri, among the most clutch kickers in NFL history. "If that's what they're looking for, so be it. You'll see a lot more kicks missed. We had a nice night, not a lot of wind. You get a crummy field and crummy weather, you're going to have a lot of two-point conversions."
If the goalposts are narrowed, Vinatieri projects the success rate for field goals of 50-plus yards will decrease from the 60% range to less than 50% — with significantly fewer attempts.
He sounded a bit bummed by the prospects.
"Any time you're going to make our job more difficult, no kicker is going to sign off on that," Vinatieri said. "Nobody's going to be happy about that. Ask the receivers to take the gloves off because they catch the ball too well. Nobody's going to be happy about that."
Vinatieri has an ally in Dallas Cowboys coach Jason Garrett, who coached the Irvin team and doesn't want to change the status quo.
"I don't like it," Garrett said of the Pro Bowl tweaks. "That's a Hall of Fame kicker we had out there."
It didn't cost them the game this time. But if it the skinny goal posts and long extra points are someday instituted, all bets are off.
Follow columnist Jarrett Bell on Twitter @JarrettBell.
GALLERY: BEST OF THE 2015 PRO BOWL