This morning Mike&Mike were talking about extra points. They asked listeners to rank highest %age to lowest of 4 things, and one of them was PKs in the EPL. When that turned out to be the lowest number, (1 point behind NBA free throws) they talked a bit about being surprised that the number was so low.
They are like Tony Kornheiser in that anything they say about soccer can be dismissed as it comes from the land of Ignorance
I used the 2015-2016 season for the EPL and NBA. http://www.myfootballfacts.com/Premier_League_Penalty_Statistics.html says 74 out of 91 penalty kicks were scored, which is .813. The NBA had a free throw percentage of .757. Therefore I'm wondering what data they used. Going farther back, the last five complete EPL seasons had a penalty kick success rate of .783, and the success rate since the Premier League era started in 1992-1993 is .842. That's higher because penalty kicks used to be more successful. The first three EPL seasons had a combined 202 out of 212 penalty kicks be scored. For 2016-2017 so far, the EPL has a penalty kick success rate of .762 and the NBA has a free throw percentage of .768.
Actually would love to see this rule change in soccer. The guy getting fouled has to take it, unless he's injured and has to leave the game. In which case the kick can be taken by anyone.
I agree. I wonder what players have had the most times in a season where they were fouled to cause a penalty kick but one of their teammates took it. I think that letting anybody take the penalty kick just leads to the best and/or most famous players getting easy chances for goals that they didn't earn. You could still let a team get a choice of which player would take the penalty kick if it came from a handball.
But wouldn't you get exactly what you have in basketball? Players that're crappy FK takers would get fouled with impunity in the final third.
Even the worst PK taker is going to be over 50%. And a goal in soccer is so much more valuable than a point in basketball. I don't see it being any more of a problem than it is now.
By "earn" I was referring to what happened in the game, not earlier in the players' careers. In 2015-2016, the NBA had a free throw percent of .757. Michael Jordan had a career free throw percentage of .835, giving him almost a third fewer misses per attempt than the 2015-2016 average. I'm not going to check how well his teammates shot free throws compared to the 2015-2016 average, but I think it's safe to say that if any player could shoot free throws for any foul, Jordan would have attempted more free throws. You have a point, but there are other factors like yellow cards for fouls, and I think if players could be forced to take free kicks the whole team would practice them more rather than having a couple of players specialize in free kicks. I didn't think about the fact that a rule change for penalty kicks would also apply to free kicks. If all free kicks and penalty kicks had to be taken by the player who was fouled, I agree that teams wouldn't intentionally allow penalty kicks of players who are bad at penalty kicks. Could a player think about where the player with the ball is and think about how good a penalty kick taker the player with the ball is quick enough to foul the player with the ball before he could shoot?
Steve Kerr shot 86.4% from the line in his career, and had seasons at 97.5% (1 miss in 40 attempts) and 92.9% (with the 95-96 Bulls), so it would be interesting who a coach would turn to if given the choice. I think free throws would become a specialist role for most teams, given to a spot-up shooter rather than a playmaker. But there wouldn't be so many fouls on centers and power forwards, certainly. As for soccer, yes, I think in most cases a defender could remember who should be fouled in a bad situation and who shouldn't.
I think it's likely/possible players would make exactly that calculus, not in the moment, but before the game. The same way coaches build tactics around targeting a player on a yellow or a player who is coming back from an injury, if I'm up against a player like Fabian Castillo who is a dangerous attacker but maybe a mediocre FK specialist then I know I can foul him in the final third without giving up a dangerous set-piece opportunity. I guess I don't know what the benefit of such a rule change would be, excepting incenting all players to practice FKs/PKs.
I've suggested this to Spencer Tillman, of NFL running back and CBS color man fame and overall really down to earth old baller, what the NFL should do to solve their playing around with the Point After Try, extra point after a touchdown for gridiron newbies. I said don't change the sport by moving the PAT back, just demand that the player who scored the touchdown now must step up and take the extra point kick from the traditional spot that it has always been done from. I mentioned the concept of basketball in that if you get the foul you must step up to the line to convert the free throws thus placing what the NFL is considering to be something "too easy" as is, now if done by the touchdown scorer, it is on the players to decide what is "easy" and not.
All soccer players have to kick the ball. Most American football players weren't trained to kick. If players who scored touchdowns had to attempt the PAT, even defensive players would need to be trained to kick because there can be touchdown returns. I could see kickers get mad that they couldn't get as high on the career scoring list as kickers who got to attempt all of their team's PATs. It would be analogous to the NBA eliminating three-pointers, therefore hurting Stephen Curry's career points.
While on the train this morning in Atlanta (going to work) I saw a guy with a MLS scarf. I did a double take-- it had the old logo (which I liked better than the current one).
I see what you did there. Implement that all kids learn how to kick a football, when you know, playing a sport named football. Thus, as this latest generation grows up, there are no longer any adult gridiron players that were not trained to kick. Correct. As in basketball, or soccer, or hockey or rugby football or the like, you as a player get to play on both sides of the sport. Offense and defense. So asking the platoon based culture of American football to have defensive players learn to kick should be welcomed. For as anyone that played, your coach might switch your from defense to offense in your career. Or vice versa. Kickers or loathed in the sport of gridiron. Limiting them, or their career stats, will carry very little weight in arguing against such a change in the sport. No it would not. For as we know, basketball did not have a 3 Point Line from 1891 till 1980 as far as the NBA goes. 1987 in NCAA and High School and Jr. High rules. Its introduction has changed the sport. What I am suggesting is not eliminating anything in American Football, nor adding a new rule. Just demand the players themselves in gridiron decide what is easy or not. Endgame here, making the PAT is on the scorer of the touchdown.
Teaching players additional things is possible, but until players got good at newly required skills, the quality of the extra points would go down. Even if you could teach all kids who play American football how to kick extra points, it would take years for those players to reach the NFL, and the NFL would have a mix of players trained how to kick extra points and players in their 30s not trained how to kick extra points. It's like how teenagers can be taught to drive on the left side of the road or the right side of the road depending on what country they live in, but the drivers in any country range from teenagers to senior citizens, and a country would never change what side of the road cars drive on because of how it would affect experienced drivers.
I was in McKinney, TX a few days ago for work. In a corporate lobby I saw a magazine called McKinney Image with a picture of a Rapids player on the cover. I didn't have time to pick it up, but it had me confused why a Rapids player would be on the cover of a local Texas magazine. Since I didn't recognize the player's face (shame on me, he's a DC United alum), I started digging into the Rapids roster. Sure enough it turns out that was Conor Doyle who is originally from McKinney. You'll see it about halfway down the page. The April edition. You can actually read the whole article. http://mckinneyimage.com/past-issues-2016/
There are two ideas for it, both from rugby. 1) Somebody on the field (doesn't have to be the TD scorer, but someone already on the field) when the TD was scored has to take. 2) He has to take from the same angle as the score, he doesn't get to set up right down the middle. For basketball, the problem is it's the only sport without an advantage rule. Soccer's we know, hockey doesn't call the penalty until the team that committed it wins the puck back, so if the suffering team can keep it it's a 'free play' (something I wish they would do in soccer too), in football they call the penalty but you can decline it. They should adapt football's rule to basketball, you can decline free throws and just inbound the ball.
That would stop teams trailing when the game is almost over from committing fouls to get the ball back. As it is, the NBA and NCAA have different rules about fouls at the end of the game. In the NBA, the second foul of the last two minutes and all fouls after that result in free throws, so a team that wants to send their opponent to the free throw line will have no fould no more than two times. The NCAA has teams in the bonus (1 and 1, which doesn't exist in the NBA) starting with the seventh foul of each half. If a team has only committed 3 fouls with 30 seconds left, they need to commit four fouls to send their opponent to the free throw line. Sometimes announcers discuss if a team up 3 points without the ball should foul to stop their opponent from attempting a 3-pointer to tie. I don't like that teams can do that while they are up 3 points. I would make a rule that a non-shooting foul committed by the defense while the team with the ball trails by exactly 3 points with 10 seconds or fewer left would always result in 3 free throws.