Kelce68
Well-known member
Umm....News flash. Edge defence or should I say edge deficiencies start from the middle and one of the big contributors is having a lack of agile middles. With Klemmer, Stef and Twal all being very similar defensively it’s obvious we need to introduce some variety into our pack.
On a lateral sweep, two things, and minor variations of those two things, contribute to the effectiveness of edge defence;
i) Can the sliding defence mitigate the speed of the half/fullback's speed to outside of his man?
Or
ii) Can an up and in defence kink the sweep through jamming, by shutting down the half (early jam) or centre /fb (late jam)?
A collapsing middle can lead to a number shortage out wide, but this is generally accumulative over a set, rather than a measure of effectiveness of an edge for a particular play.