The National Football League last week tweaked its extra-point rules and procedures, and as a whole those changes should work in the favor of your Denver Broncos.
Here’s the quick skinny:
Longer extra-point kicks
The point-after attempt has been moved from the 2-yard-line back to the 15-yard-line, but that shouldn’t bother the Orange and Blue’s Connor Barth too much, even though he has never missed in 149 career extra-point attempts from the old distance.
From the 15-yard-line – roughly a 32-yard field goal – Barth is 3-of-3 on kicks in his career since entering the league in 2008 with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Overall, on career 30-to-39-yard field goal attempts, Barth has been successful on 88.5 percent (31-of-35) of his kicks – just a shade above the league average of 88.2 percent during that span.
Going for two
Those coaches who elect to go for two points after a TD – and that’s one of the main goals of the new rules – will still be doing so from the 2-yard line. The only real difference now is that the opposing defense can score two points of its own if it scoops up a fumble or intercepts a conversion pass and returns it to the house.
Still, the Broncos should be in more than fine shape here.
During the Peyton Manning era (2012-14), the Broncos have been successful on three of their four two-point tries – all four being passes – and that 75 percent success rate is tied for fifth in the league among teams with two or more two-point attempts and is well above the overall league success rate of 49.7 percent during that span.
Switching sides of the ball, the Broncos’ opposition has attempted 13 two-point tries – 10 passes and three rushes – over the last five seasons, and only two (one rush, one pass) have been successful. That 15.4 percent success rate is tops in the league and is well below the overall league rate of 50 percent during that time frame.
Inside the 5 dominance
There’s even more positive news when we expand things and look at how the Broncos have fared from the opposition’s 5-yard line and in during the Manning era.
According to our informative friends at Pro Football Reference, the Broncos have run 161 plays from scrimmage within 5 yards of the enemy end zone over the last three seasons, and have scored a league-best 74 touchdowns for an impressive 46 percent success rate – which also tops the NFL during that span.
On the surface, it would seem like Manning’s lack of mobility would be a detriment in this area of the field, but his accuracy and field awareness more than makes up for it as he’s 45-of-83 passing with a league-most 42 TDs and no interceptions inside the opposition’s 5-yard line since coming to the Mile High City. That’s good for a 99.3 passer rating, which ranks only behind Matt Schaub (107.5), Drew Brees (103.9), Andrew Luck (102.2) and Sam Bradford (101.0).
Of the top 14 leading pass-catchers – in terms of TD receptions – inside the opposition 5-yard-line from 2012-14, an amazing five of them are current or former Broncos. Emmanuel Sanders, Wes Welker and Eric Decker have nine scoring receptions apiece while Demaryius and Julius Thomas each have seven TD grabs.
On the ground, the Broncos have logged 75 rushing attempts inside the opposing 5-yard line over the last three seasons and have scored TDs on 31 of those attempts. Projected starter C.J. Anderson has six of those attempts and has struck paydirt an impressive four times.
