The lights in the offices of special teams coaches across the NFL will be on a bit later at night than usual this offseason, because their jobs just became much more challenging. When owners voted last week to eliminate a wedge on kickoff returns that includes more than two players, citing safety concerns, some called it a minor alteration. But it's far from that to special teams coaches, who now are forced to rewrite significant portions of their playbooks because of how prominent the wedge had become. The wedge is a human wall, often including 300-pound linemen who line up closest to the returner and whose job it is to take on coverage players who have built up great velocity from surging down the field. They usually absorb the most violent hits on each return, and this will limit those collisions.
Teams like the Redskins and Giants figure to be most affected, as they regularly run powerful four-man wedges. A couple of teams occasionally run a five-man wedge. "Most everybody runs a three or a four, and has for years," said Bills special teams coach Bobby April, whose units annually rank near the top of the NFL. "I told my wife, with these rules I just added a lot more work hours because we run that and we've run that for a long time and been successful with it. It's going to take a lot of work and a lot of ingenuity to come up with a different offense, because basically a kickoff return is an offensive play. This might be too dramatic, but if we ran the wishbone and all of a sudden they said, 'You can't run the wishbone anymore,' that offensive staff is going to have to come up with something. We're on a smaller scale because certainly there are less kickoff returns, but all of us are going to have to come up with something different, because across the board almost everybody is affected by this."
First-year Patriots special teams coach Scott O'Brien concurred. Once he learns more about how officials plan to interpret all aspects of the rule, he'll head back to the drawing board. "The wedge has been around as long as I can remember, where you utilized it or had to deal with it one way or another, so it's going to force everybody now to re-create their return schemes and have a different look on how to defend those returns," O'Brien said.
In search of improvements for the Cardinals' return game in 2009, special teams coach Kevin Spencer recently put together footage of the four-man wedges of the Redskins and Giants. Spencer had planned to adopt more of that style, but he's since changed course. "I wanted to study it and was thinking that was maybe a way I should go from a teaching and repetition standpoint. Now I'll have to go look at other things," Spencer said. "At least we're not finding out in June and scrambling to get your playbook ready for July, when you have to teach the guys. Coaches are paid to coach and be creative, so we're doing what we're paid to do."
Although they will be breaking from tradition, April, O'Brien, and Spencer favor the change if it means player safety will be enhanced. While some teams might still have a couple of bigger linemen leading the returner as part of a two-man wedge, all three coaches anticipate that kickoff return teams will now feature more players with a different body type. Thus, there is likely to be a trickle-down effect in how head coaches determine their 45-man game-day rosters - a backup lineman who might be in the wedge could turn out to be a luxury that is no longer feasible. "Now you could be eliminating them," O'Brien said. "You could find a lot more smaller athletes on the field both ways because they're one-on-one and you have to be able to play in space. I think it will create a little more excitement that way in terms of the matchups we have on the field."
More teams figure to adopt what is often referred to as a "match" or "man" return, which April describes as "when you literally match up 10 against 10 and guys single block." Former Patriots special teams coach Brad Seely was considered among his colleagues to be a master of coaching the "match" return when he was with the Panthers in the 1990s and had explosive returner Michael Bates. Seely, who joined the Browns this year, became more of a wedge coach in recent years in New England. "But you might see that kind of matchup scheme come back into vogue," Spencer said. "You don't ever really get rid of stuff, it just sort of comes and goes, and that might be something you see come back. It will depend on each coach's philosophy and what type of personnel you have."
The change might appear subtle to the casual fan - and perhaps not noticed - but it's already a big topic among special teams coaches. "I don't think the fans will be shortchanged, I think you'll still see some big returns," April said. "It's going to take some ingenuity and creativity to come up with different things for teams who strictly run that style of [wedge] attack, but I don't think it will take away from the excellence or the beauty of the kicking game."
