LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Special teams coordinator Dave Toub doesn’t think that a new NFL rule adopted Tuesday outlawing wedges on kickoffs will affect the Bears' return game.

“Some teams run a zone-wedge scheme and some teams run a man scheme, and we’re a man scheme,” Toub said. “We don’t hold hands or anything like that to form a wedge.

Danieal Manning returned a kickoff 83 yards for a touchdown last season against the New Orleans Saints.

“In a zone scheme, you’ll be shoulder to shoulder with a guy sometimes holding hands or linking arms, and you’ll block whoever’s in your path. We really don’t form a tight wedge like some teams do, so it shouldn’t really affect us.”

That’s good news for the Bears and Danieal Manning, who led the NFL in kickoff returns with a 29.7-yard average last season.

The Competition Committee outlawed the wedge because of safety concerns. The new rule states: “After the ball is kicked, no more than two receiving team players may intentionally form a wedge in an attempt to block for the runner. An illegal wedge is defined as three or more players lined up shoulder-to-shoulder within two yards of each other.”

Toub was surprised that the rule was adopted due to the ambiguity of defining a wedge.

“There’s a lot of gray area,” he said. “It’s going to be tough to officiate. They say it’s two yards, but how long do they have to be together? Can you form two two-man wedges now? I’ve got a lot of questions. We’ll have the officials come in [to training camp] and explain it to us.”

While the new rule shouldn’t impact the Bears’ return game, it will affect their kickoff coverage given that several opponents do employ wedge schemes.

Toub was happy the NFL passed another special teams rule on Monday that prevents teams from stacking more than five players together while attempting an onside kick. A few years ago, the league required teams to put at least five players on both sides of the kicker. But some special teams coaches countered by bunching all 11 of their players together in the middle of the field.

“I’m glad that rule was implemented,” Toub said. “I knew guys were trying to get around the old rule with what they were doing. You’d have 10 guys running at one man who was trying to pick up the ball, and it was real dangerous.”