Penalty on scoring play?

[Robert Goodman]

Originally Posted by HLin NC

This is no revelation. The rule change was imposed originally for field goals and tries and then worked its way to touchdowns. The NFHS perceived too many "free shots", primarily by B, to foul against a scoring opponent where the scoring team was having to decline a foul to keep the score. They are trying to "disincentivize" fouling for the sake of stopping a score.

The cynical/professional foul problem has come up in other field sports, but was it really a problem in American football? How often did the foul prevent a score? And if it did prevent a score, wouldn't the penalty usually be accepted anyway? Seems to me it would apply more often to prevent unnecessary roughness by players who figured they had nothing to lose.