I was reading the thread on analytics and it spurred me to post this. Whoever came up with the point system in football was a mad genius. Making it into the endzone gives you six points. That has the same value as two drives, stopped short, and ending with a Field Goal (3 x 2 = 6). But the TD gives you the opportunity to kick an extra point which now makes the TD worth 7 which is 2.3333 Field Goals. And if you go for two, and make it (about a 40% probability), your TD & 2 is worth 2.667 TDs.
As the game goes on, you can play really well and still be losing 7-6 if you don't hit the endzone and give up a cheap TD on a broken play or turnover. At the same time, by manipulating the extra point/2 pointer, you can manage the margins to force the other team to have to score a TD (4+ point lead) tie the game (7 point lead) or a TD +2 to tie the game (8 point lead). Or, if it isn't the end of the game, the simple case of selecting the PAT or 2 pointer, positions the team to manage the lead to force a FG to tie, FG to win, TD to tie (6), TD/PAT to tie (7), or TD +2 to tie (8).
Not to be lost is weird quirks when a safety is scored or a PAT returned by the defending team. I still recall Iowa purposely taking a safety to cut their 6-2 lead to 6-4 with lots of time left in the game. The genius was not giving up a TD to fall behind when neither team's offense could score consistently. It ended up being crazy like a fox.
It is amazing to me that so many games come down to a HC managing those seemingly simple margins early in the game. This brings me back to the thought that whoever came up with this seemingly weird scoring method was mad genius.
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