---
slug: "flying-wedge"
title: Flying Wedge
depth_tier: entry
side: OFFENSE
category: Rules
source_id: "RUL-0044"
created: 2026-05-16
updated: 2026-05-16
canonical: https://learningfootball.xyz/terms/flying-wedge
aliases:
  - flying wedge formation
  - wedge formation
  - mass momentum play
---
# Flying Wedge

## Short Definition

A mass-momentum formation where blockers locked arms in a V-shape—banned in 1906 after causing deaths and injuries that triggered the forward pass legalization.

## Definition

The flying wedge was a mass-momentum offensive formation used in football from roughly 1892 until its ban in 1906, in which blockers locked arms in a V-shaped formation and ran at full speed toward a single point of the defensive line, driving opponents out of the way with the combined weight and momentum of multiple players moving in formation. The ball carrier ran inside the wedge, protected by the mass of blockers ahead.

Lorin Deland, a chess expert who had never played football, designed the original flying wedge in 1892 for Harvard, drawing on military history and the concept of concentrating force at a single point. Harvard defeated Yale using the formation that season, and variations spread rapidly across college football. The play was devastatingly effective: a defense attempting to stop players running in locked formation at full speed faced a nearly impossible task with the tackling techniques of the era.

The formation produced injuries and deaths at rates that triggered national alarm. In the 1905 season alone, 18 players were killed and approximately 150 seriously injured in college football. President Theodore Roosevelt convened meetings with college athletic directors and threatened federal action if the sport did not reform. The resulting rules changes in 1906—which banned interlocking interference and mass-momentum plays, legalized the forward pass, and required players to separate before contact—specifically targeted the flying wedge and its derivatives.

The flying wedge's legacy is the forward pass. By banning mass formations and requiring open play, the 1906 rules created the space in which the forward pass could develop as an alternative to ground-based mass football. The violence of the flying wedge era indirectly produced the aerial game that defines modern football.

## Example

"Players locked arm-in-arm in a V, running full speed at one spot on the defensive line. The ball carrier ran inside. There was no legal way to stop it and survive the attempt. That's why it was banned—not because it didn't work, but because it worked too well."

## Common Confusion

The flying wedge is often described as simply a brutal play, but its design was tactically sophisticated for its era—it was an efficient application of mass and momentum that gave the offense a structural advantage at the point of attack. The problem was not the concept but the physics: players locked arm-in-arm running at full speed into a stationary defense produced injuries at a rate the sport could not sustain. The ban was a safety response, not a tactical one.

## Related

- walter-camp
- forward-pass
- ncaa
- targeting
- roughing-the-passer

---
Source: https://learningfootball.xyz/terms/flying-wedge