Two-point conversion

For the rugby football scoring attempt after a try, see Conversion (rugby).
Navy quarterback Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada puts the ball over the goal line for a two-point conversion at the 2007 Poinsettia Bowl

In gridiron football, a two-point conversion, two-point convert, or two-point attempt is a play a team attempts instead of kicking a one-point conversion immediately after it scores a touchdown. In a two-point conversion attempt, the team that just scored must run a play from scrimmage close to the opponent's goal line and advance the ball across the goal line in the same manner as if they were scoring a touchdown. If the team succeeds, it earns two additional points in addition to the six points for the touchdown, for a total of eight points. If the team fails, no additional points are scored.

Conversion attempts are untimed plays in American football, and in the Canadian game they are untimed in the final three minutes of each half. If any time remains in the half, the team that scored the touchdown will proceed to a kickoff after their conversion attempt.

To attempt the two-point conversion, the team that just scored must run a scrimmage from the 5-yard line in amateur Canadian football, 3-yard line in professional Canadian football, 3-yard line in amateur American football, or 2-yard line in professional American football. In professional American football, there is a small dash to denote the line of scrimmage for a two-point conversion; it was also, until 2014, the line of scrimmage for a point-after kick ("extra point").

Various sources estimate the success rate of a two-point conversion to be between 40% and 55%, significantly lower than that of the one-point conversion (which has a 90% to 95% success rate in the NFL),[1] although, because of the higher value, a higher expected value is achieved through the two-point conversion than the extra point.[2][3]

  1. ^ Baker, Kendall (2021-12-10). "No more gimmes: NFL extra point success rate plunges to 92.4%, lowest since 1979". Axios. Retrieved 2023-04-22.
  2. ^ 412sportsanalytics "Two-Point Conversion: My two-data-cents,", 2016.
  3. ^ K. Pelechrinis "Decision Making in American Football: Evidence from 7 Years of NFL Data, in Machine Learning and Data Mining for Sports Analytics", 2016.