NFL Playoff Picture Has Been Reshaped by the Two-Point Runback

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The Raiders are in complete command of the AFC West, two games ahead of the 8-4 Chiefs, three ahead of the 7-5 Broncos, who are scrambling just to earn a Wild Card bid. 

The Steelers sit all alone atop the AFC North. The 6-6 Ravens hardly pose a threat. No one has taken them seriously since they handed the Browns their first win of the season back in Week 2.

The 8-4 Falcons hold a one-game lead in the NFC South, but it is hardly safe. The Buccaneers are a threat, and the 6-6 Saints have three divisional games left and some impressive wins on their resume, including an upset of the Broncos.

Yes, most of the records above look wrong. No, I’m not writing this column from dollar draught night yet again. These standings come from Earth Prime, a parallel universe where everything is the same as it is here except for one tiny ripple in the space-time continuum: on Earth Prime, extra points and two-point conversions cannot be returned for scores by the defense.

Up until 2015, that was the rule here, too. A blocked extra point was nothing more than a lost point for the opponent, and an intercepted two-point conversion was no better than an incomplete two-point conversion. But when the NFL provisionally moved extra points to the 15-yard line last year, it also allowed blocked attempts and turnovers on failed conversions to be returned by the defense for two points.

It sounded like an insignificant change at the time. After all, blocked extra points were rare, and two-point conversion attempts weren’t all that common. Only one blocked extra point was returned for a score in 2015, early in a December Saints-Panthers game, so there probably weren’t many serious discussions about the potential impact on future playoff races when the league made the rule change permanent this year.

But moving the extra point back 13 yards increased both the block rate and the incentive to go for two, also increasing the likelihood of a momentum-changing turnaround after a touchdown. This year’s three conversion runbacks all involved playoff contenders and affected the outcomes of the games in which they took place.

The Ravens were getting clobbered by the Browns in the first quarter in Week 2 when Lawrence Guy blocked an extra point and Tavon Young ran it back for a score. What looked like a 21-0 Browns lead became a 20-2 lead. With the margin narrower, the Ravens were able to play for field goals (as they do best) late in the game and went on to win 25-20. Brandin Cooks scored a game-tying touchdown with 1:22 to play against the Broncos in Week 10. But Willie Parks returned Justin Simmons’ blocked extra point up the sideline for a 25-23 Broncos victory. Maybe Parks stepped slightly out-of-bounds, but it wasn’t Cleat Week, so the white (as opposed to technicolor) shoes provided inconclusive replay evidence against the white paint of the sideline. You saw what happened on Sunday. The Falcons took a one-point lead late in the fourth quarter. A two-point conversion would have put them up by a field goal. But an Eric Berry interception return (the first-ever NFL pick-two) gave the Chiefs the lead and eventual victory. 

It’s only after you zoom out and look at the whole …

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