NFL kickers have gotten so good. What if we upped the ante?

By Hannah Keyser, CNN

San Jose, California (CNN) — Seattle Seahawks kicker Jason Myers holds the record for the most points scored in a season without a touchdown and the highest field goal percentage in a season (that is: 100% perfection).

In the offseason, he practices his accuracy by trying to hit the bright yellow poles that form the goal posts from 50 yards away.

“Usually, I’ll hit a few,” he told CNN Sports this week. But come game time, when it matters, “hopefully not.”

Andy Borregales, the Patriots rookie kicker, practices hitting the uprights before every game, in a similar accuracy drill, estimating that he makes contact about one-third of the time. Sometimes he succeeds at it even when he’s not trying to, like in a game.

“But those aren’t on purpose,” Borregales said.

Of course not. Under the current National Football League rules, a doink that bounces outside the posts is worth nothing. An agonizingly minuscule miss that can change the entire complexion of a game. A critical gaffe manifests as a visual goof that counts the same as if you were Charlie Brown kicking at a football whisked away at the last second by Lucy. Which is to say: zero points.

But, what if it was worth more? What if hitting the uprights was extra compared to getting the ball through the goalposts?

“I’ve never heard that one before,” Myers said.

“It’s a fantastic question,” said Seahawks special teams coordinator Jay Harbaugh.

“You know what? I like it,” said Patriots special teams coordinator Jeremy Springer. “It would make the kicking game drastically different.”

NFL kickers are better than ever. They might be, according to some fans who don’t live in Baltimore, too good.

They’re more accurate than ever because of increasingly specialized training. They’re able to kick the ball further, inspiring teams to go for field goals from greater distances more frequently. New rules around the balls — teams are able to prepare and practice with the same balls kickers use in-game — are amplifying these trends.

“That’s why kickers can hit 65, 70 yards now. They’ve done it their whole life. And we have the balls all season now,” Springer said. “They’ve broken them in, they’ve got a good feel for them. So they’re more confident.”

The result is “changing football.”

You see it in the comment section of NFL stories and on social media – fans grumbling that too many games are reduced to teams trading field goals back and forth. The action you imagine when you picture football is largely reduced to a precursor to a predictable kick. Stunted drives that barely make much headway downfield are sufficient to switch over to special teams.

Sure, you could try to handicap the kickers in some capacity – narrowing the goalposts, for instance – but what if instead they upped the ante and incentivized kickers to attempt a higher risk, and higher reward feat. Like hitting the uprights.

Here’s the proposal CNN Sports gave to the kickers and special teams coaches at Super Bowl Opening Night: One more point for kicks that make contact. So that’s four points for a field goal that hits the posts and instead of one extra point, two – if you can doink after a touchdown.

That’s it. That’s the whole rule change. (Disclaimer: It is not under any serious consideration, unless someone from NFL HQ is reading this. In which case, you’re welcome.)

First of all, it’s fun. But perhaps more importantly, it incentivizes aiming for the edges. The higher stakes of which would create more drama, more failure, and more excitement in the case of success.

But would kickers and coaches actually ever actually attempt this?

“Trying to hit the pole?” said Springer. “It depends on your kicker. If your kicker is more of a big leg than an accuracy guy, you probably won’t do it that often. But if your kicker is more of an accurate guy, I would say inside of the [Point After Touchdown], so 30 yards total.”

His guy, Borregales, is accurate. So Springer was excited about this possibility – in certain situations.

“It depends on the game. It depends on the situation,” he said. “Like, what are the stakes in the football game? Is it a preseason game? Yeah, you probably go for four. Is it a Game One or Game Two of the season? Yeah, you probably go for the win.

“Is it to go to the playoffs? You go for the tie, go to overtime, if you feel like you got the momentum going with you. If you have no momentum, if you feel like this is the only chance to win the game, then you probably go for it. So it all depends on situations and how that game flowing.”

Harbaugh, however, was more hesitant, in spite of his kicker’s proven pinpoint potential.

“I would imagine that guys would get good enough at that that you could consider it,” he said, “but I don’t think, anytime in the near future, it would be consistent enough that it’d be worth the risk of no points.”

He could imagine a scenario with the game on the line and a touchdown out of reach — fourth and long — when you’d be forced to at least attempt it. But even as good as the kickers have gotten in recent years, “to say that they could hit the upright on purpose repeatedly? That would be very difficult.”

The kickers themselves were wary of this suggestion.

“It would just depend on the game and how it’s flowing,” Myers said, “if you want to take the risk or not.”

“I’d probably still aim for the middle,” Borregales said.

For now, sure. But such a rule change would inspire training to adapt to meet the incentive structure. Teams would select for accuracy and work harder to hone it.

“If you had it that way, you would probably want more accurate kickers more than big-leg kickers,” Springer said. Increasingly, kickers are not kids who played soccer most of their lives but dedicated specialists who have trained for this role since elementary school.

“The guy that could do that might be out there,” Harbaugh conceded. “It’d be pretty interesting.”

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