It’s Time To Talk About Field Goals

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Tom Dempsey’s 63-yard field goal in 1970 was so otherworldly, it spawned NFL rules changes. The prior distance record was set 17 years earlier and was from seven yards closer.

How quaint.

Field goals were then meant to serve as sort of a consolation prize for the close-but-no-cigar reward of three points, or half that of a touchdown, to match the era’s success rate of slightly above 50%, according to pro-football-reference.com. As that rate—in addition to field goal attempts per game--started to creep up, the league in 1974 moved the goal posts back 10 yards from the goal line to the back of the end zone and awarded a change of possession from a missed try at the spot of the attempt, not the line of scrimmage.

However, the discouragement couldn’t blunt mankind’s performance improvements over time, in this case placekicking. Player advancements in leg strength and accuracy have made field goals the equivalent of NBA free throws—the NFL’s composite percentage over the last 20 years has ranged from 81%-to-86.5% (by the way, 78% of NBA free throws were converted last season, per basketball-reference.com). Whereas a 50-yard or more field goal make was once a rare occurrence, it’s so prevalent now--the 71.7% success rate on such attempts last season was the highest in league history--that it has distorted the game.

New York football fans felt the full effect in this season’s first two weeks. The Steelers and Cowboys barely had to cross midfield before Pittsburgh’s Chris Boswell booted a 60-yard field goal with about a minute to go to beat the Jets in the opener while Dallas’ mega-leg Brandon Aubrey nailed a 64-yarder at the gun to send Sunday’s contest against the Giants into overtime before his measly 46-yard chip shot won it. Per media estimates, those longer kicks would have been good from at least 70-to-75 yards out.

This is not sour grapes, but what are we doing here? Football’s essence, as George Carlin once comedically argued, is as a war-like game of advancement. Reaching the end zone is the mission.

Except no longer are we watching teams “settle” for field goals. With the evolution of the short passing game and the new kickoff rules that have led to better starting field position, all you need is a couple of first downs and you’re in scoring position.

How often do we hear on a broadcast: “The quarterback can’t take a sack here to knock his team out of field goal range”? The networks even invented a bright red line to show viewers an estimate of where the offense needs to target for it to reach its kicker’s outer limit. The field goal has become a goal.

Going back to the basketball comparison, no one goes to a game hoping to watch a parade to the free throw line. Want to know how much of an outlier Jim Bakken’s seven field goals in a game for the St. Louis Cardinals was in 1967? To that point in league history, only one NFL kicker had booted six (another did so in the AFL). In the last 20 years, 30 games have seen at least a 6 field goal day from a kicker, including six 7FG games plus Rob Bironas’ record-setting eight field goal performance for Tennessee in 2007.

We just witnessed Atlanta grab Parker Romo off the street prior to Sunday night’s game with Minnesota--he didn’t even know his teammates’ names--and when he went 5-for-5 on field goals, including a 54-yarder, we said, “that’s normal.”

I say it’s time to look into a new normal. Changing the point system would likely be seen as too drastic, though I wouldn’t be opposed to knocking field goals down to two points.

However, given its radical transformation to kickoffs, the league doesn’t seem to have a problem with modifying special teams rules. Why not set a minimum advancement marker, perhaps the 30-yard line, for field goals to be permitted? And like with the 2024 onside kick rule before it was just tweaked, we can exempt trailing teams in the last two minutes of the fourth quarter to preserve end-game excitement.

I don’t see a downside. There will be fewer instances where the flow of the game is interrupted so one individual has the opportunity to procure points; instead, more teams will go for it on fourth downs, which is what most fans in the stands seem to want anyway.

These days, the NFL owners can’t even agree on what to do about the “tush push”, never mind expecting them to initiate a conversation on taking extreme measures to the scoring system. The league keeps printing cash, so there’s no motivation to change anything (the kickoff revisions were developed with player safety acting as the catalyst).

Still, even an outfit as omnipotent as The Shield could use a kick in the pants every now and then.