Commanders Notebook: Defense vs Ravens
Breaking down a few different players from the Commanders’ defense against the Ravens
Last week I wrote a piece covering a few different notes I had after watching the Commanders’ defense in their preseason opener. I figured I’d do the same again this week after Washington ended the Baltimore Ravens preseason winning streak. So here’s some notes I had on a few different players on the defensive side of the ball.
Emmanuel Forbes
Forbes hasn’t seen a great deal of action so far this preseason, so we haven’t really been able to talk too much about him. He played a few snaps with the starters last week but was never really tested. This week, the Commanders opted to play him despite resting the majority of the starting defense. He still only played a few series, but we did get a bit more of a look at him. Now it’s worth pointing out at the top that we didn’t see the Commanders running anything more than just basic coverages, so there’s still a lot more to see from Forbes when we hit the regular season, but nevertheless I still had a few notes.
The first play of note from Forbes was a negative one. Forbes aligns in off coverage opposite Ravens’ first-round pick Zay Flowers. Flowers runs a quick hitch, which teams often like to do against off corners to test their ability to break down quickly and make a tackle. What’s interesting here is that as the ball is snapped, Forbes gains some depth but crucially opens his hips to the sideline. This is a technique corners use in man coverage to take away the inside and force the receiver towards the sideline.
The issue with this technique here is that Forbes is such a better player when playing with vision on the quarterback and this technique closes his body off from the quarterback. Now he can’t always play with vision on the quarterback and he was likely anticipating a deeper throw, thus preparing himself to be able to turn and run with the receiver down the field, but ideally he’d be able to backpedal and play with a bit more vision.
Because of this technique, he’s just a fraction late to break on the route when the receiver stops on his hitch route. This has a knock on effect as Forbes is then a fraction late to arrive after the receiver has secured the catch and because he’s late, he rushes to try and make up ground, which leads to poor tackling technique. Forbes goes far too high and misses his target as the receiver cuts inside of him and breaks free of the tackle attempt. Fortunately safety Jeremy Reaves is there to clean up and prevent the gain from becoming a huge one.
Going into the regular season, Forbes will play more coverages that let him play outside leverage with vision on the quarterback because that is where he is at his best. However, teams will also be testing him within the game plan. They will be trying to isolate him on the back side of formations and force him to play more man-to-man coverage where he can’t necessarily play with vision. Ultimately I think he will adapt and be fine, but it is something worth keeping an eye on early in the year.
Later in the game, Forbes was able to show why he is so good from an off technique.
Here we see Forbes initially as the outside corner to the right side of the offense formation. Before the snap of the ball, the outside receiver goes in motion and becomes the slot receiver. Forbes initially follows the motion but then he and Quan Martin shift assignments with Martin bumping inside and Forbes taking over the other receiver. Forbes maintains his off technique and just adapts his initial alignment to the new coverage assignment.
Once the ball is snapped, Forbes watches the release of his receiver and instantly reads where he’s going. If you watch the play closely, you can see how Forbes breaks outside before the receiver does, anticipating correctly where the receiver wants to run. The quarterback takes a brief look outside to see if he can throw that out route, but he soon spots Forbes breaking on the route before his receiver has made his cut and knows that he can’t throw that way.
Forbes’ ability to read and anticipate routes is one of the biggest strengths of his game. Yes the Commanders drafted him because of his ability to create turnovers, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t get many opportunities for interceptions because he’s so good at anticipating what route is coming and jumping it before the receiver makes his break. If he keeps doing that, it will shut down routes but also force the QB to throw the ball away from him.
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