The Buccaneers' preseason game against the Bengals on Saturday featured something you almost never see in the NFL: A team kicking an extra point wasn't given credit for the kick even though the ball went through the uprights.
The bizarre situation happened late in the first quarter of Cincinnati's 19-14 win over Tampa Bay.
The odd play started after Buccaneers running back Ke'Shawn Vaughn scored on a 2-yard run. Following the touchdown, Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians decided he wanted to get a little tricky with his extra point play.
The Bucs indicated that they wanted to go for two, so the officials set the ball up at the 2-yard line. At that point, the Buccaneers sent out their kicking team, but with a twist: The team's holder (Bradley Pinion) lined up at quarterback and the team's kicker (Ryan Succop) lined up at running back.
After realizing that the Bengals were ready for the trick play, Pinion called for his teammates to set up in a normal extra point formation so that they could kick the ball and that's exactly what they did.
Here is Succop knocking the extra point through.
@Buccaneers with a genius play! Tell the ref's your going for 2, they spot the ball at the +2 for the attempt. Bucs come out in a muddle and shift into FG formation and kick a 20 yard PAT! Interesting to see how the @NFL @NFLOfficiating will adjust! pic.twitter.com/WJWFrO1BOs
— Billy Miller (@_thebillymiller) August 15, 2021
After the kick went in, the scoreboard still said 6-0, which confused a lot of people who were watching the game.
Didn't we make that extra point?
— The Jason (@southern_dining) August 15, 2021
This guy even offered to send the Buccaneers a video of the kick going through.
Not that 1 point matters after that score, but we made the extra point in the first quarter… Even have video from our seats in the end zone! But it was never counted…?
— Austin (@_austingreer_) August 15, 2021
Although many fans thought the officiating crew messed something up with the extra point, they actually got the call right. The extra point didn't count because of where the Buccaneers kicked it from.
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Back in 2015, the NFL moved the extra point snap back from the 2-yard line to the 15-yard line, which means that if a team wants to KICK an extra point, they have to snap it from the 15. If a team wants to attempt a two-point conversion, they get to snap it from the 2, however, if they go that route, they're absolutely not allowed to kick it.
The Buccaneers kicked it anyway marking the first time that a team has tried an illegal extra point since the rule changed six years ago.
So what happens if a team tries an illegal extra point? Glad you asked. The kick goes down as an "aborted" attempt in the NFL's official play-by-play summary, which means it doesn't count, even if it goes in.
After the game, Arians was asked about the bizarre extra point attempt and he definitely didn't sound happy about how his team handled it.
"We had really bad communication on the faked extra point," Arians said, via TampaBay.com. "The kicker didn't know the rule. You can't line back up and kick it. You don't get a point for it. Evidently, it wasn't communicated well enough that you can't do that, so that's on me."
The good news for the Buccaneers is that it happened in a preseason game, so it won't matter much in the larger scheme of things. Also, the rest of the NFL now knows that kicking an extra point when the ball is snapped from the 2-yard line is a horrible idea.
