OK, who blinks first?
Now that field goals have been moved back all the way to the 15-yard line by the NFL, which team is most likely to be the first to blow one of them.
And will it be the Tampa Bay Bucs?
Oh, that’s a fear, of course, because of the fatalist in you. After all, last year the Bucs seemed to find every other way to lose a football game.
But the odds aren’t in favor of the Bucs. One, they don’t score enough. Two, the weather is usually too good. Kicker Patrick Murray was actually pretty solid last year, making all 31 of his extra points and seven of eight field goals inside the 40 (the new distance will be from the 33).
So glance across the league and you find a likely suspect.
How about Green Bay?
Look, the Packers score an amazing number of touchdowns. Last year, they scored 55. Score that often, and the odds tend to catch up with you. For instance, Green Bay did miss two extra points. Part of that may have been the frigid conditions in which the Packers play.
In fact, the worst extra-point kicking teams of them all were bad- weather teams. Buffalo missed one, and Chicago missed two.
Now that an extra point is essentially a 33-yard field goal, will they miss more?
Oh, there won’t be a lot of misses. Experts suggest maybe a couple a week. Kickers still hit 90 percent of their kicks from that distance.
But someone’s going to miss, and some kicker is going to lose his job, and some fan is going to lose his mind.
Maybe, just maybe, you’ll pay a bit more attention. Which is kind of the point.
