Conversion (gridiron football)

Whether a team goes for one or two points, most rules regarding scrimmage downs, including scoring touchdowns and field goals, apply as if it were a normal American fourth-down or Canadian third-down play.

Exceptions, including cases where the defense forces a turnover during a conversion attempt, vary between leagues and levels of play.

For example, on December 4, 2016, Eric Berry of the Kansas City Chiefs made an interception on a try and physically returned it 99 yards for a defensive two-point conversion.

[1] A term popularized by sports writer Mitch Goldich is octopus, in which a player scores the touchdown and the immediately following conversion.

[3] A notable octopus is one scored by Jalen Hurts to tie Super Bowl LVII with 5:20 left in the game.

In its earliest days, scoring a touchdown was not the primary objective but a means of getting a free kick at the goal (which is why the name "try", more commonly associated with rugby today, is still used in American football rule books), and thus early scoring rubrics for the game gave more points to the subsequent kick than the actual advancement of the ball over the goal line.

Although a successful kick is only worth one point, and has a very high rate of success, missed or blocked attempts can decide the outcome of the game: The CFL and NFL both made major changes to the rules governing conversions prior to their respective 2015 seasons, reducing or eliminating some of the differences between the two leagues.

Two states, Texas and Massachusetts, play high school football under NCAA rules and thus allow the defense to score on an extra-point attempt.

In the NFL, the conversion was required after a touchdown scored during the regulation game (i.e., not overtime), because point differential is used for some tiebreakers in the standings.

[19] Starting with the 2018 season, the NFL adopted the CFL rule allowing teams to waive "unnecessary" extra-point attempts at the end of the game, following the Minneapolis Miracle unless the score margin is within two points.

[20][21] In most cases in gridiron football, one point may be scored following a touchdown—bringing the total value of the touchdown to seven points—by place kicking the ball through the uprights.

Rich McKay, the chairman of the NFL competition committee, said that coaches were discussing going for two points after a touchdown on their first possession in overtime of a postseason game, as a strategic move.

[24] In 1968, the AFL and NFL eliminated the extra-point kick for interleague preseason games, allowing only one-point scrimmage plays called "Pressure Points"; this was scrapped when both leagues began their regular seasons that year.

[26] The 2022 incarnation of the United States Football League followed a compromise model in that extra-point kicks were still allowed, but that a conversion could be worth two or three points based on distance.

Furthermore, some roster moves, like the Barcelona Dragons acquiring NFL alum Giorgio Tavecchio, were seen as attempts to improve both field goal and PAT success rates.