NFL owners vote to change rules governing extra points and conversions

It has been discussed for some time now that the rules governing extra points and conversions needed to change. Teams routinely convert 99.1% of extra points under the current rules. Meanwhile, 47.4% of two-point conversions are successful. This meant that the expected points for an average team were higher if they elected to kick. ESPN Stats & Info's numbers would seem to suggest that with the rules change, that is no longer the case with teams coming in at 91.6% from 32-33 yards.

That's a big, fat 0.08 points worth of advantage to an average team should they try for two. In theory, that advantage could lead to coaches kicking less often. Other numbers suggest that the attempt hasn't been moved back far enough for that to be the case. That's because the 91.6% number is derived not only from kicks from the center of the field but also each of the hashes. Of course, that gives us a lower number than what we can expect from the center only.

30-35 yard FG accuracy in 2013 and 2014 by location: Left Hash 91.6%, Center 97.6%, Right Hash 93.8%

— Nathan Jahnke (@PFF_NateJahnke) May 19, 2015

Nathan Jahnke's numbers mean that the difference between snapping from the 2 and the 15 while not negligible is very nearly so. The fact that the defense can now return a turnover committed while going for 2 will probably also be enough to scare off teams from that tiny statistical advantage. We'll just have to wait and see how it plays out, though.