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Originally Posted by MJT
Where are you going with this anyway?
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I'm volunteering to coach some youth football, thinking of putting in a wedge series, and seeing what I can do. It doesn't look like the cases presented here would be a problem, because the pass is unlikely to be withheld long enough that any of the wedgers would get more than 2 yards downfield. (Older Fed rules gave the officials a lot more discretion in ruling on ineligibles downfield, even saying they should
not have a definite distance in mind!) The passes are likely to be quick ones, thrown over the middle or outside just as the wedge forms. However, I could
imagine a wedge pass in which the ballcarrier (the QB in my scheme) would wait for the wedge to get going, squat and even take a couple of steps with it, then step back into or behind the NZ and fire, and in that case the apex of the wedge might well have gotten pushed beyond the expanded NZ.
Or I could look at it from the defense's POV. If the safety can see that some part of the wedge has gotten past the ENZ, then s/he can safely forget about pass coverage.
From what I read from coaches who coach the wedge, their main problem has been illegal use of hands calls. The techniques they coach commonly call for putting the inside hand on the back or butt of the wedger ahead of you, and some have the outside hand on the inside shoulder of the wedger ahead of you. If the hand is relaxed that should be no problem, but I anticipate a tendency to either grab the teammate's shirt with the inside hand or to put the outside hand
over the shoulder of the teammate. Therefore I'm going to try to coach the wedgers to keep their hands on the ground, and make contact only via the shoulder.
Robert