If there’s one way to generalize the sweeping impact of analytics on sports, it’s this: Scoring points is valuable.
Take baseball, where hitting home runs — even at the expense of setting strikeout records — has become preferred to the once-hallowed small-ball approach of sacrificing runners and hitting for contact.
Basketball has undergone an outside shooting revolution that devalues mid-range 2-point shots and emphasizes floor spacing and 3-pointers.
Meanwhile, the NFL has seen a huge spike in scoring as quarterbacks leaguewide post record numbers through the air. In step with this boom in points has come a two-point conversion renaissance that is putting the onus on teams’ in-game strategy and sweetening water cooler discussion for armchair coaches everywhere.
“I just think the league’s aggressive overall,” Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer said Thursday. “The statistical average is a little bit higher than it has been on the two point [plays].”
How about a lot higher?
Teams have succeeded on two-point conversions 34 out of 59 times this season, equating to 58 percent. Over a full season, that would be the highest percentage since the two-point conversion was instituted in 1994. The last time teams converted over 50 percent was 2012, when clubs made it 21 times out of 38.
Wait — just 38?
Not only are teams more successful on 2s this season, but they’re trying more than ever before. The NFL is on pace to see 143 two-point conversion attempts, shattering the previous high of 113, which was set in 1994 as teams liberally experimented with the new rule.
TWO-POINT CONVERSIONS SINCE 1994
| ATTEMPTS | CONVERSIONS | CONVERSION RATE | |
| 2018 | 59 | 34 | 58% |
| 2017 | 84 | 37 | 44% |
| 2016 | 104 | 51 | 49% |
| 2015 | 93 | 45 | 48% |
| 2014 | 58 | 28 | 48% |
| 2013 | 69 | 33 | 48% |
| 2012 | 56 | 29 | 52% |
| 2011 | 50 | 23 | 46% |
| 2010 | 50 | 26 | 52% |
| 2009 | 58 | 24 | 41% |
| 2008 | 64 | 28 | 44% |
| 2007 | 57 | 30 | 53% |
| 2006 | 38 | 21 | 55% |
| 2005 | 50 | 27 | 54% |
| 2004 | 74 | 37 | 50% |
| 2003 | 64 | 29 | 45% |
| 2002 | 93 | 47 | 51% |
| 2001 | 89 | 40 | 45% |
| 2000 | 85 | 35 | 41% |
| 1999 | 82 | 29 | 35% |
| 1998 | 98 | 41 | 42% |
| 1997 | 109 | 47 | 43% |
| 1996 | 92 | 43 | 47% |
| 1995 | 102 | 40 | 39% |
| 1994 | 113 | 59 | 52% |
The Vikings are 2 of 3 on the season, converting a vital two-point conversion against the Green Bay Packers to send their Week 2 game to overtime, and another in the second half against the Los Angeles Rams to pull within three. They failed once, late in a blowout loss against Buffalo.
“It’s a big part of the game,” said quarterback Kirk Cousins. “These games are so close that the nature of being ready with two-point conversions and knowing they may come up, and then the importance of the play itself working, it’s a big deal.”
Offensive coordinator John DeFilippo said he carries four or five two-point plays on his call sheet each week — a significant jump from when he coordinated the Cleveland Browns in 2015.
“You have your menu of two-point plays that you like against certain things. The same time the beauty of that is, as well, is you have your three or four plays that you really like. You can carry those to plus-five plays as well,” DeFilippo said, referring to plays inside the 5-yard line. “If you need a play on the plus-five, it’s later in the game. You say, ‘I really like this play.’ Case in point, the play we ran against Green Bay for the two-point conversion to [Stefon] Diggs to tie it, that was actually really in our plus-five menu. That was not in our two-point play menu.”
In 2017, DeFilippo’s Eagles lost their kicker to injury mid-game and were forced to go for 2 on four occasions. They converted 3 of 4 and beat the Dallas Cowboys 37-9.
Strangely, however, two-point conversion rates were down last season, finishing at 41 percent, the lowest mark since 2009.
That makes the sudden spike a bit harder to explain, though it’s possible teams are putting a greater emphasis on practicing two-point plays each season as it becomes more commonplace to try them outside of dire, late-game moments.
Teams this year have tried 20 conversions prior to the fourth quarter; there were 26 all of last year. For instance, the Cleveland Browns tried three of them before the fourth quarter in an eventual overtime loss to the Oakland Raiders earlier in the season, connecting on two of them.
But two-point plays are also being utilized more often to improve a team’s odds of winning. Eagles coach Doug Pederson and Giants coach Pat Shurmur have both tried going for 2 when down 20-12 in the fourth quarter of games this October. Though neither team won the game, a conversion in that situation would enable the offense to win the game with another touchdown, rather than tie. In Week 7, Titans coach Mike Vrabel tried to beat the Los Angeles Chargers with a two-point conversion in the closing seconds, but Marcus Mariota’s pass fell incomplete.
As expected, there was plenty of second guessing.
Missed extra points have also played a factor in the spike as teams have found themselves chasing points more often since the league moved the extra point back to 33 yards in 2015. Kickers have dropped from 99 percent to around 94 percent accuracy, lending more value to a successful two-point conversion. The way teams are converting in 2018, an extra point yields 0.95 points per attempt (501 out of 528), while a two-point conversion yields 1.15 points per attempt (34 out of 59).
Zimmer admits the so-called chart to which coaches refer is changing “a little bit,” though the Vikings have yet to attempt a two-point conversion this season that would be deemed unorthodox.
“We follow a chart,” said DeFilippo, “but at the same time Coach [Zimmer] has a great feel for the game. He really does. He has been doing it a long time at an elite level. Coach is one of those guys that has been there, done that, seen-it-all type guys. He has a tremendous feel for the game as the game is going on.”
Like most trends, a few brave coaches are required to stick their necks out and normalize a practice once thought by many to be foolish. Don’t chase the points, says the old cliche.
But the value of the two-point conversion has seemingly taken hold through seven weeks of the season, and the numbers back it up: Going for 2 makes sense.
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