Emmanuel Forbes struggles against Eagles
Breaking down the struggles of rookie cornerback Emmanuel Forbes in the loss to the Eagles
It’s no secret that Washington Commanders rookie cornerback Emmanuel Forbes had a rough outing against the Philadelphia Eagles this past Sunday. The first-round pick was beat deep a number of times and gave up too many explosive plays, including two touchdowns to Eagles receiver A.J. Brown, who Forbes followed for much of the game. Brown finished the game with nine catches on 13 targets for 175 yards and two touchdowns. Not all of that was on Forbes, but a good chunk of it was. So what went wrong for Forbes in this game? Let’s dive into the All-22 and take a closer look.
First off, let’s start with some context. These past few weeks the Commanders have been testing Forbes against some of the best receivers in the league. In the Commanders loss to the Bills last week, Forbes spent a lot of time following star receiver Stefon Diggs. In my opinion, Forbes had his best performance of the season, responding to the challenge after having some ups and downs in the first few games. So it made sense the Commanders would test out their rookie corner again this week when facing another tough opposition like the Eagles. The question was which receiver would they put him on, A.J. Brown or DeVonta Smith.
In terms of body type, Forbes matches up much more equally to Smith as both entered the league as long, athletic but skinny players for their position while Brown is the opposite. So on first look, you might think it makes more sense for Forbes to match up on Smith. However, Smith is an excellent route runner and is incredibly quick in and out of his breaks. Forbes has struggled to defend double moves all season due to his aggressive nature, so someone like Smith could be seen as a huge threat in that regard. While Brown is a much more physical receiver that could be harder for Forbes to tackle, Washington probably felt that Forbes has the quickness and length to stay with Brown even if he bites on a double move.
Early on in the game, the plan was working relatively well. Forbes had a couple nice reps where he stayed tight to Brown and prevented him from being able to catch the ball in one way or another.
Here we see Brown aligned to the right of the formation tasked with running an out route against Forbes, who plays with outside leverage. Brown runs a pretty solid route, selling the threat vertically with five strong strides up the field that get Forbes to nearly commit to running deep. Brown then sharply cuts across Forbes’ face and too the sideline on his out route.
However, as we discussed, Forbes has the quickness to stay with Brown despite the good route. Forbes does a terrific job transitioning, planting his foot and pivoting off it to open his hips quickly out to the sideline. This enables him to stay tight to Brown, who gets no separation out of his break. Quarterback Jalen Hurts wants to throw to his top receiver, but Forbes is too tight in coverage so the throw has to be placed further outside and Brown can’t get to it.
Later on, Forbes even had a pass break up against Brown.
This time Brown splits to the left of the formation and looks to run a deep curl route. Forbes this time plays with inside leverage and as the route progresses, he opens his hips to the sideline as he prepares to turn and run vertically down the field with Brown. This indicates he’s more in a man coverage technique than zone. As Brown gets to the top of his route, we again see a quick transition from Forbes. He was nearly ready to fully open up and run down the field with Brown, but he quickly got his feet stopped to slow his momentum before then getting them started again to drive down on the route. He’s helped out a little bit here by Brown slipping slightly out of the break, but Forbes was already breaking on the route before that point. Forbes uses his length to get his hand in at the catch point and disrupt the catching process and the ball falls incomplete.
Now, while Forbes did have a few nice reps early in the game, the Eagles eventually found the way to attack him. By now you all know Forbes is a corner that likes to make plays on the football and is always hunting for interceptions. Corners that like to ballhawk can often be too aggressive in hunting for interceptions that they get that aggression used against them. That’s precisely what the Eagles did.
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