By Fintan Letzelter '26
Introduction
It is week 12 of the 2022 NFL season, and the Baltimore Ravens lead the Jacksonville Jaguars 27–20 with 20 seconds left in the game. Quarterback Trevor Lawrence has just led the Jaguars on a methodical 2-minute drill down the field, and now faces first-and-goal at the Ravens’ 10-yard line. Lawrence drops back and throws to Marvin Jones in the end zone, who brings it in for a touchdown. Head coach Doug Pederson now faces a choice: go for a 2-point conversion to try to win in regulation or kick an extra point and go to overtime. Choosing to go for two puts the result of the game into the hands of the offense that just marched down the field.
If they are successful, the Jaguars are almost guaranteed to win the game. On the other hand, 2-point conversion attempts have a success rate below 50%, so there is significant risk that the Jaguars fail and thus lose the game (Pro Football Reference, 2022). For most of the NFL’s history, the prevailing logic in situations like this has been to kick the extra point and play for overtime, so that the game doesn’t hinge on a single play. Recently though, teams have been attempting the 2-point conversion at a higher rate than before, rather than playing for overtime. This change could be explained by the line of scrimmage for extra-point kicks being moved from the 1-yard line to the 15-yard line in 2015, which significantly reduced the success rate of the attempt. The increase in teams going for two instead of kicking for one has puzzled (and sometimes even angered) many fans. This paper aims to determine which choice is optimal for teams. With the data available at the time of this writing, teams should go for 2 when they must win the game but should attempt the extra point when a tie is deemed an acceptable result.
Methods
To obtain data for this research, box scores of all NFL games since 2012 were analyzed (up to Week 14 of the 2022 season). 2012 was chosen as the cutoff because the NFL overtime rules were changed in the spring of that year: a field goal on the opening drive of overtime no longer ended the game (NFL Overtime Rules, 2012). This change significantly altered the nature of NFL overtime, therefore only games since the rule change were analyzed. Every game that ended in a 1-point difference, as well as games that went to overtime, were scraped from The Football Database of NFL box scores (The Football Database, 2022).
The 1-point games that ended on a successful or unsuccessful 2-point conversion attempt in the final 2 minutes were recorded for analysis. The overtime games where a team was trailing by 7 points and scored a touchdown and extra point in the final 2 minutes were also recorded for analysis. The record of teams that attempted the late 2-point conversion was determined, as well as the record after overtime of the teams that scored the late touchdown to tie the game, and this data was converted to success rates. All rates and p-values in this analysis were rounded to two decimal places.
Results
Since 2012, 54 NFL games have featured a team trailing by 7 points in the final 2 minutes scoring a touchdown, kicking the extra point, and forcing overtime. The team that scores the game-tying touchdown is 28–21–5 after the overtime period is completed. Two games where a team intended to play for overtime but missed the tying extra point were included in the analysis as well, putting the overall record of teams that chose to play for overtime at 28–23–5. The notable number of ties in this result creates the need for two different cases in this analysis, one where a tie is a satisfactory result for the team that scored, and one where only a win is a satisfactory result. When a tie is a satisfactory result, the success rate of kicking the extra point and going to overtime is .59. When a tie is not a satisfactory result, the success rate is .5.
Since 2012, 19 NFL games have ended with a team attempting a 2-point conversion to take the lead in the final 2 minutes of the game. One team attempted such a 2-point conversion in 2013, but the other 18 times it occurred in 2016 or later. This suggests that the lengthening of the extra point may have been a factor in coaches deciding to go for 2 more often in these situations. In these games, the teams that attempted the 2-point conversion were 9–10, a success rate of .47. The league-wide success rate for 2-point attempts since 2012 is .48 (Pro Football Reference, 2022).
Analysis
The reasoning that coaches use when they go for two at the end of games likely involves the fact that the success rate of 2-point attempts, .48, is greater than the theoretical chance of winning after kicking the extra point and playing for overtime. By intuition, teams should win about 50% of their overtime games. In the context of this analysis, this rate should be multiplied by the success rate of extra point attempts. Since 2015, when the extra point was lengthened, the success rate of the attempts is .94 (Pro Football Reference, 2022). Multiplying the theoretical 50% win-rate by the extra point success rate of .94 produces a theoretical success rate of .47 for teams that choose to play for overtime in these late-game situations. This would indicate that over time a team should win slightly more games when opting for the two-point conversion (.48 success rate) than when playing for overtime (.47 success rate). The results so far, though, are that the team playing for overtime wins slightly more than the teams that go for two. The question then becomes whether this difference from the expected result is due to random variation or not.
First, it must be determined whether the observed success rate for teams that elect to go for two is significantly different than the expected success rate of .48, the league-wide success rate of all 2-point attempts (Pro Football Reference, 2022). A significance test for proportion produces a p-value of .52, a statistically insignificant result. Thus, at the time of this writing, .48 can serve as the success rate of these late-game 2-point conversion attempts.
A significance test can be done to determine whether the observed success rate of teams that play for overtime is significantly greater than the expected success rate of teams that go for two, which is .48. When a tie is not a satisfactory result for the team, the significance test produces a statistically insignificant p-value of .38. When a tie is a satisfactory result, though, the p-value is just .05, statistically significant at a 95% confidence level. This indicates that the success rate (when a tie is satisfactory) of kicking the extra point and playing for overtime is significantly higher than the success rate of going for two.
It’s important to consider why the teams that score going into overtime do so much better than the expected rate. There might be the psychological effect of momentum going into the overtime period, so the team that tied the game late plays better overall and with more confidence in overtime. Giving up a late touchdown might also suggest a tired defense, another overtime advantage for the team that scored. Teams should continue to monitor the results of these situations going forward. If the observed success rates of the two options – going for two or kicking the extra point – remain as they are, it may become obvious that teams should always attempt the extra point.
Conclusion
Teams trailing by 7 points at the end of regulation that score a touchdown have two options: kick an extra point or go for two. The analysis done for this paper shows that teams that choose to kick the extra point have a significantly higher rate of winning or tying than the win-rate of teams that go for two. This paper suggests that head coaches faced with this decision should consider whether a tie is an acceptable result for their team. If the team must win, the observed data is inclusive, and the theoretical success rates suggest that the team should attempt the 2-point conversion. If a tie is an acceptable result, the data shows that kicking the extra point and playing for overtime is the best choice for the team. As more games are played, the statistical analysis done in this paper will become more accurate and powerful, since the sample size of these situations is relatively small. Teams should monitor how these situations play out over time and reevaluate their strategy periodically.
References
NFL overtime rules. (2012, March 12). NFL.com. Retrieved December 19, 2022, from https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-overtime-rules-09000d5d827ee2c0
Pro Football Reference. (n.d.). NFL season by season scoring summary. Retrieved December 19, 2022, from https://www.pro- footballreference.com/years/NFL/scoring.htm#all_team_scoring_season_totals
The Football Database. (n.d.). 2022 NFL box scores. Retrieved December 19, 2022, from https://www.footballdb.com/games/index.html