SmashMouth

Reviews have been mixed around the league for the NFL's experiment with longer kicks on extra points. Regardless, it appears there's a future for them.

Eight kicks from the longer distance -- usually 33 yards -- were missed during the first two weeks of the preseason. The 94.3 percent success rate (133 of 141) was below the regular-season rate (99.6 percent) from 2013 when the ball was snapped from the 2-yard line instead of the 15. Only five of 1,267 short kicks were missed in 2013.

All of this summer's misses came with the ball snapped from the 15. Snaps will move back to the 2 this week and for the regular season.

NFL officiating director Dean Blandino says he believes longer PAT kicks are "in the league's near future." The results this preseason will be brought to the competition committee, and a proposal for change almost certainly will be presented to team owners at next March's annual meetings. Blandino isn't sure the 15-yard line will be the focal point of any change.


New Orleans' Shayne Graham missed an extra point against St. Louis earlier this month, one of eight PAT misses so far this NFL preseason.

As with any alterations to the game, coaches and players offered a variety of viewpoints.

San Francisco's veteran placekicker Phil Dawson didn't get a chance to try a long extra point because the 49ers didn't score any touchdowns in their first two exhibition games. He sees the positive and negative sides of a longer kick.

"It could rear its head in a game where the kicker hasn't been on the field in a while," Dawson said. "It's hard to stay loose and then all of a sudden there's a sudden score, maybe a fumble recovery, kickoff return, interception return. You might not be super loose yet. It's one thing to go out there and pop through a 20-yarder. You back up (another) 13-15 yards and you're a little stiff, you could possibly run into some problems there."

On the other foot ...

"Any rule change that's designed to highlight what guys do well, I'm all for it," Dawson added. "If that rule change is motivated by, `Man, our kickers are really good and we want to showcase what they do well,' I'm all for it."

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Danno

Stupid change. The more important they make a stupid kicker to the game, the more it hurts the game.

Kickers aren't football players, they're kickers!