A rarely highlighted part of the game (don't want to make stars of week-to-week signees) this is incredible to watch live at a game.
No more.
Mindful of Violence, the N.F.L. Rules Out the Wedge Formation
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/sports/football/24nfl.html?hpwMatt Bowen spent seven seasons in the N.F.L., some of the time as a wedge buster, the no-sane-person-need-apply job designed to break up one of football’s most iconic formations, the 900-pound snowplow of linemen, with their arms linked or hands joined, designed to block for a kick returner.
But the wedge is going the way of the leather helmet next season, legislated out of the game because of an emphasis on player safety that is also eliminating the bunch formation from kickoffs. And as special-teams coaches scramble to their drawing boards this spring, Bowen has mixed emotions about the disappearance of one of the game’s most brutal, but basic, elements.
“You have a 50-yard head start and you run into your garage door — that’s what it feels like,” Bowen said recently. “It looks cool on TV, guys dance around when they get up, but they’re dying inside. It’s so much more violent than a play from scrimmage because you have so much speed behind you.”
But the nature of the injuries — concussions and neck injuries primarily caused when a player lowered his head as he approached the wedge — convinced the league that it was time to shake up special teams.
When the N.F.L.’s competition committee met to discuss the changes, it invited current players to watch video of collisions caused by the wedge and bunch formations.
“When you showed them collisions, you could feel them quiver,” Pereira said. “When they’d ask for volunteers to defend against this, they’d all hide. Nobody wants to attack a wedge or a bunch formation. There are still going to be onside kicks and good kickoff returns. They’re exciting plays and we want them part of the game, but we want them to be as safe as we can possibly make it.”
Mike Westhoff, one of the game’s most respected special-teams coaches, insisted that in 27 years, he never used the term wedge buster — he called it a media creation — and he did not recall a player being hurt against the wedge, either.
“I’m not going to ask guys to run head-on into a pickup truck,” Westhoff said. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You’re trying to get through two people, stay above the waist. We’re not throwing someone down as cannon fodder.”
“I think we’ll see fewer bigger returns,” Bowen said. “Guys are going to be able to attack the ball carrier more. I think the returner is at some risk, because guys come down faster and there’s some big-time collisions on returners.
“You take one thing away, it just leads to something else.”
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