Surprise: Jets’ Nick Folk wants to increase value of NFL kickers

New York Jets kicker Nick Folk, a star at Notre Dame High in Sherman Oaks and at Arizona, is having none of this talk about doing away with extra points in NFL games. He has a few suggestions that would, you guessed it, increase the value of a placekicker.

First, if you haven’t heard, the NFL has begun debating the worth of extra points. Commissioner Roger Goodell said in an interview that one idea is to make all touchdowns worth seven points. A team then has the option to try a conversion play worth an additional point, but if the pass or run fails it would cost the team a point. That’s right, take the seven or go for eight and possibly end up with six.

In an interview with the Star-Ledger of New Jersey, Folk was adamant about keeping the kicking game intact. “It’s been a part of the game for so long,” he said earlier this week. “And I think that it would be a disservice to take it away.”

Folk, who has never missed a point-after attempt in 269 kicks during his seven seasons with the Jets and Dallas Cowboys, took it a step further by saying football games could be more exciting by adding a narrower set of uprights inside the standard set, forcing the kicker to make extra points through the smaller space.

With those narrower uprights, Folk says, field-goal attempts that split the new width could be worth four points. If the ball hits the new uprights but doesn’t go through, the kick would still be worth three points.

But he wasn’t done, because there’s the always-exciting proposition of the 50-plus-yard kick. A field goal of that distance that went through the narrower uprights could be worth FIVE points.

“As a kicker, it’s the best thing you could do,” Folk said. “You could kick a 50-yarder if you’re down by five at the end of the game and tie it, if you’re accurate enough with it. You’re rewarding accuracy.”

Come to think of it, Folk’s last idea might be an attempt to kill the Hail Mary pass.