Ian Allan

A final thought on two-point conversions.

The general accepted practice is that you should kick the PAT and go into overtime, but the numbers don’t actually back that up.

When you hear numbers being thrown around about teams converting only about 40 or 45 percent of their two-point conversions, those numbers aren’t accurate. Those numbers include all two-point conversion attempts. If a holder drops a snap and is tackled while trying to get up and run for a two-point conversion, that is credited by the league as a failed two-point conversion. If the snap goes over the holder’s head and winds up being recovered back at the 20-yard line, that goes down as a failed two-point conversion attempt.

These plays don’t happen often, of course, but with the hundreds of PATs being kicked each season, some of those straggler plays are invariably worked in, and then they get forgotten about – skewing the two-point success rate downwards.

The NFL would have you believe, for example, that in the last two years, teams have gone 51 of 102 while attempting two-point conversions – 50 percent. But take out the 11 slop plays and teams went 51 of 90 – 57 percent.

The all-time NFL success rate on two-point conversions currently sits at 46 percent, but I don’t believe that number. I don’t have the figures for bad snaps and holds for all of those years, but my guess is that the success rate for two-points conversions is probably more likely to be something like 52-53 percent.

—Ian Allan

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