The Baltimore Ravens were hardly having the best of days, but they’d successfully negotiated a last-ditch journey Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers by driving 69 yards in nine plays for a touchdown. The Steelers suddenly led by just 18-16 with 66 seconds left.
No doubt the Ravens would try a two-point conversion to tie the score and send the game into overtime. But the Steelers, expecting a Tim Tebow-like pop pass, called time out as quarterback Lamar Jackson got ready to take the snap. So the Ravens called another play.
The NFL would describe the play as “pass failed”, but Jackson took the snap and rolled to his left, something we know he is good at. But Pittsburgh also knew that and quickly sealed off Jackson’s paths – and his receivers. His desperation jump-ball pass tumbled to the turf.
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“It was a QB run,” Jackson said later. “They just stopped it. They did a good job.”
But it was not unusual. NFL defenses are doing a stunningly good job at thwarting two-point conversions this season. Through 11 weeks, NFL offenses have converted merely 26 of 83 two-point attempts, or 31.3%, compared with 70 of 127, or 55.1%, in all of last season.
Over the weekend, NFL teams made merely two of nine two-point conversions: a pass by the Cleveland Browns in a 35-14 loss to New Orleans, and a pass by Washington in a 26-18 loss to Philadelphia that ended with a magnificent tip-toe catch by tight end Zach Ertz.
Other than the fact that defenses are more prepared than ever (although that can also be said of offenses), there are no real explanations for the sudden dip in the two-point conversion rate. On Jackson’s attempt, Pittsburgh cornerback Joey Porter Jr simply made a superb play by forcing Jackson to roll to the sideline, giving him no chance to turn upfield.
When the NFL announced before the 2015 season that the line of scrimmage would be moved to the 15-yard line for kicked extra points – kickers had missed only eight of 1,230 extra-point kicks a year earlier – it seemed as if the two-point conversion would be used more.
Two-point conversion attempts rose to 94 in 2015 from 58 in 2014. By 2021, NFL teams attempted 154 two-pointers, making 75, nearly half. In 2022, NFL teams again made nearly half of their two-point attempts, 56 of 119, and then they did even better in 2023.
This year is different: Sixteen teams, half the league, have converted no two-pointers. The New York Giants are 0-for-6, and the Tennessee Titans have not even tried one. Cleveland and Jacksonville, terrible otherwise, are the only teams with more than two successful tries.
After a 27-22 loss to Washington on 3 November that included two missed two-pointers by his team, New York coach Brian Daboll said, “I felt good about what we had, and they did a good job stopping it,” sounding much like Lamar Jackson would two weeks later.
When it was introduced before the 1994 season, the two-point conversion seemed like a relatively easy task: line up at the two-yard line and use the “biggest guys on the field”, as John Madden called offensive linemen, to punch a hole big enough for a running back to slip through.
That first year went pretty well, with 59 of 113 tries converted, or 52.2%. There was still confusion as to when to try a two-pointer instead of a kicked extra point, infamously illustrated by a two-point conversion attempt by Philadelphia in the seventh week of the season.
The Eagles were playing the Dallas Cowboys at the old Texas Stadium, which had a hole in its roof “so God can watch His favorite team play”, as the Dallas linebacker DD Lewis said. It would have been a lousy view that afternoon: It was raining hard in Irving, Texas.
Unfortunately for Eagles coach Rich Kotite, the rain made it difficult to decide whether to go for two when Philadelphia cut the Dallas lead to 24-13 with less than six minutes left in the game. Later, he explained it like this: “Rain made the ink run and blurred the chart, so I couldn’t see what was written on it to know what to do.”
Kotite had quarterback Randall Cunningham run for two, but the Cowboys stopped him. According to a chart done for the NFL by Dick Vermeil back then, a team should try for two when leading by 1, 4, 5, 12, 15 or 19 points, or when trailing by 2, 5, 9, 11, 12 or 16 points.
So Kotite had made the right call, but he looked like a rube to those ever-impatient Eagles’ fans. He was fired after the Eagles’ season ended with seven straight losses (which was probably a more significant factor than that wet play-call chart).
The benefits of the two-point conversion were probably never more consequential than in Super Bowl LI, when the New England Patriots overcame a 28-3 deficit to beat Atlanta in overtime with two late touchdowns in regulation, followed by two two-point conversions.
In addition to moving the line of scrimmage back for kicked extra points in 2015, the NFL implemented “defensive two-point conversions”, when the defense obtains the ball by blocking a extra-point kick or forcing a turnover on a two-pointer and running with it to the other end zone.
These have been rare – but, interestingly, they are becoming even rarer. Between 2015 and 2019, there were 10 defensive two-point conversions, including four in the 2016 season. However, there have been only three defensive two-point conversions in the last five seasons.
(The Eagles have been the only NFL team with a defensive two-point conversion this year. Isaiah Rodgers blocked a Tampa Bay kicked extra-point try, and Kelee Ringo scooped up the ball and returned it 60 yards for two points. The Eagles still lost, 33-16.)
As a result of all of this, teams have become more bashful at trying two-point conversions this season: attempts are down to 2.6 per team, compared with 4.0 last season and 4.8 in that two-point-crazy 2021 season. Maybe doing it less often makes it less efficient.
Don’t expect the NFL to ditch it, in any case. The two-pointer keeps games competitive for longer – like that Steelers-Ravens game. Defenses have gained an edge for now, but these things are always subject to change. That, or the NFL will just change the rules again.
