A touchdown is worth 6 points today, but that number is barely a century old. American football’s first scoring system existed in 1883. Back then, a touchdown counted for only 4 points, while a field goal counted for 5. Kicking the ball through the uprights used to matter more than crossing the goal line.
That imbalance took nearly 30 years and four separate rule changes to fix. The two-point conversion’s path into the NFL was even stranger. It actually involves a rule the league dropped rather than added.
What Is a Touchdown Worth Today?
Six points, plus a choice. After every touchdown, the scoring team picks between a 1-point kick from the 15-yard line or a tougher 2-point try from the 2-yard line. For the full mechanics of both options, along with field goals and safeties, see sportDA’s complete NFL scoring guide. This piece covers something different: how that number became 6 in the first place, one small chapter in the sport’s much longer rulebook.
1883: When a Field Goal Was Worth More Than a Touchdown
Walter Camp built football’s first real point system in 1883. It reflected a game still built around kicking. A field goal counted for 5 points. A touchdown counted for only 4. Even the free kick a team earned after reaching the end zone, the ancestor of today’s PAT, counted for a significant number of points in the scoring math.
That ranking made sense at the time. Football had grown out of rugby. A try earned a team nothing on its own there, only the right to attempt a kick at goal. Camp’s early rules still treated the touchdown as a step toward the real prize, a successful kick, rather than as the sport’s main scoring play.
The Climb to Six Points
The touchdown’s value crept upward in stages. Each one nudged the sport further from its kicking-first roots. In 1897, it rose to 5 points. The kick after a touchdown dropped to a single point, which is when the modern term “extra point” was coined.
Field goals moved the opposite direction. The value dropped to 4 points in 1904, then down to 3 in 1909, the same figure still used today. By 1912, the touchdown reached its modern value of 6 points. The league added a defined end zone to the field that same year. That single year established the exact hierarchy that football still uses more than a century later.
The Two-Point Conversion’s Strange Path to the NFL
College football added the two-point conversion in 1958, decades before the NFL ever considered it. The rival American Football League adopted the option in 1960. It used the rule for its entire 10-season existence. Team owner Lamar Hunt is often remembered as one of the rule’s biggest champions, but he actually voted against it at the time.
The AFL-NFL merger in 1970 should have carried the rule into the combined league. It didn’t. NFL rules governed the merger instead, and the two-point conversion simply disappeared from professional football for 24 years. The two leagues even tried a bizarre compromise for 1968 preseason interleague games. That version eliminated the easy kick entirely, making every conversion attempt worth just 1 point regardless of method. Nobody used it again.
The NFL finally adopted the two-point conversion in March 1994. Owners hoped it would boost sagging offensive output around the league. Cleveland Browns punter Tom Tupa scored the first one that September. He faked a routine extra-point kick and ran the ball in himself under the first-year head coach Bill Belichick. The Super Bowl got its own first that same season. Chargers receiver Mark Seay caught a two-point pass from Stan Humphries in Super Bowl XXIX.
Lesser-Known Facts About the Touchdown’s Point Value
- The NFL almost eliminated the extra point kick entirely in 2014. Kickers had made 1,260 of 1,265 attempts the year before. The league considered simply awarding 7 points for an unconverted touchdown and 8 for a converted two-point try, but owners never voted on it.
- A losing team down by 15 points late in a game has a known optimal strategy. Going for two after each of the final two touchdowns beats kicking one and going for two on the other. That holds true as long as the two-point success rate stays above roughly 38%.
- A missed two-point conversion can still score a single point. Under NCAA rules, a safety during a two-point try or PAT counts as 1 point. It’s the only way a team scores exactly one point during actual game action rather than a forfeit.
- The 1876 rules that predate Camp’s point system valued kicks even more heavily. A touchdown carried no point value on its own at all. It only earned a team the right to attempt an uncontested kick, and a made field goal counted as the equivalent of four touchdowns.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many points is a touchdown worth in the NFL?
Six points, the same value the league has used since 1912. The scoring team then chooses between a 1-point kick or a 2-point conversion attempt.
Was a touchdown always worth 6 points?
No. It started at 4 points in 1883, when a field goal was actually worth more. The value rose to 5 points in 1897 before reaching its current 6 in 1912.
When did the NFL add the two-point conversion?
1994, even though college football had used it since 1958. The old American Football League used it throughout the 1960s too. The rule disappeared when the AFL and NFL merged in 1970 and didn’t return for 24 years.
Who scored the first two-point conversion in NFL history?
Cleveland Browns punter Tom Tupa, on a faked extra-point kick in the Browns’ first game of the 1994 season. He ran the ball in himself under head coach Bill Belichick.
Why was the extra point kick moved to the 15-yard line?
Kickers had become nearly automatic from the old distance, converting over 99% of attempts in 2013. The NFL considered eliminating the kick entirely before settling on the longer 15-yard-line attempt starting in 2015.
Why did field goals used to be worth more than touchdowns?
Early American football grew directly out of rugby, where kicking a goal was the sport’s real scoring play. A touchdown only earned the right to attempt one. That kicking-first hierarchy was carried into Walter Camp’s first point system in 1883.
A touchdown is worth 6 points today because three decades of rule changes gradually shifted football away from its kicking-first rugby roots. What is a touchdown worth in the bigger picture? A touchdown is worth more than any single field goal, safety, or defensive score. That hierarchy took until 1912 to actually become the sport’s permanent rule.
