Evaluating Emmanuel Forbes Training Camp Practice vs Jets

Forbes had some poor reviews from the joint practice against the Jets, so I found as many clips as I could to break down his performance

The Washington Commanders held a joint training camp practice with the New York Jets on Thursday ahead of their preseason opener on Saturday. One of the main headlines coming out of the practice was the performance of Commanders cornerback Emmanuel Forbes. Forbes was a first round pick in 2023, but struggled mightily in his rookie year. He’s hoping to bounce back strongly in his second year in the league, but the reports suggest he’s off to a rough start, at least with this joint practice. 

Forbes faced Jets star receiver Garrett Wilson a number of times in the practice session and reportedly struggled. I wasn’t at the practice so I can only go off clips I’ve found on Twitter. There were four major plays that went somewhat viral, but multiple different camera angles made it look like there were a lot more. So I’ve found all the clips I could and cut together the different angles of each rep to try and get an understanding on what happened with each play and how Forbes can improve. First up, let's start with the one that everyone has probably seen, the deep touchdown. 

(Clips from Twitter user @Huddle_NFL and the Jets official account)

It’s understandable why this clip went viral. Forbes lines up in press coverage against Wilson, who releases inside and runs by him down the field on his way to a deep touchdown. It’s not a good rep by Forbes and I won’t give him any excuses, but we can look at why it went wrong for him. Forbes opts against trying to jam Wilson at the line, but does move his feet well to stay on top of the route initially as Wilson releases inside. Wilson sells just a little stutter move on his fifth step at about six or seven yards of depth. Forbes bites just enough on that move to allow Wilson to show off his speed and acceleration. 

Forbes does actually manage to stay level with Wilson after the stutter, but my guess here would be he starts to anticipate an in-breaking route of some sort. You can see just before the camera angle is adjusted that Forbes begins leaning inside on Wilson slightly, which suggests to me he’s anticipating an in-breaking route and is preparing himself to undercut it. Unfortunately for Forbes, there is no cut inside and Wilson carries on running down the field. Forbes has a little stumble once he recognizes that Wilson isn’t making a cut inside and that gives Wilson that yard of separation. 

At that point, a good throw out in front leaves Forbes completely beat. However, this pass is slightly underthrown, allowing Forbes the opportunity to recover slightly. He does make up ground thanks to Wilson having to slow down to wait for the ball, but Forbes then makes another error. Forbes doesn’t use out-of-phase technique, which is a technique used by corners that are out of position or beat on a play. When a corner is in a good coverage position, you want them to look back for the ball to try and make a play on it, but when a corner is in a bad position or out-of-phase, looking back for the ball can lead to losing track of the receiver completely. Instead, out-of-phase corners are typically taught to focus on the receiver’s hands and play through the hands to disrupt the pass instead of trying to make a play directly on the ball. 

Forbes doesn’t use that technique, instead he turns his head to look back for the football without any sign of it coming. From the end zone replay angle, you can see that the moment Forbes turns his head to look for the ball, it drops over his helmet and into the arms of the receiver. Had he just been watching Wilson’s hands, he could have still had a chance to recover and break up the pass. 

There are a few other things to note on this play too. Free safety Quan Martin got caught a little too shallow trying to disguise the coverage at the snap. The Commanders are playing Cover-1 with Martin responsible for the deep middle, man coverage across the board and everyone else rushing. Martin tries to bluff a potential Cover-0 look by rotating down late to act like he’s actually matching the running back out of the backfield, but it backfires as he doesn’t get enough depth after the snap to stay on top of the deepest route, which was Wilsons. You wouldn’t necessarily expect a free safety to get all the way out to the numbers, where Wilson eventually caught the pass, from the middle of the field anyway, but if Martin had a bit more depth he might have been just enough of a deterrent for the throw or perhaps been able to get across and contest the pass. 

The other part of this play is the pass rush. It is to be expected to see Frankie Luvu on the edge rushing against the right tackle, but it’s still noteworthy. Percy Butler is also on the field and he’s the safety that is actually matching the running back. When the back stays in to protect, Butler joins the rush but is perhaps a tick slow to recognize the back protecting. On top of this, the defensive end on the far side could have perhaps ended this play before the ball got thrown. I can’t quite make out the jersey number, but he does a nice job coming off the edge and beating rookie first round left tackle Olu Fashanu for a pressure off the left side of the offensive line. He looks like he could close in quickly on the quarterback as he begins his throwing motion, but just pulls up slightly to avoid hitting the quarterback as is typical in practice. Perhaps in a real game the throw gets off anyway, but maybe in a real game that rush gets there and saves the ball being thrown deep. 

The second play worth looking at is a slant route from Wilson against Forbes. 

(Clips from Youtube user DEVO Highlights Presents (NFL) and Twitter user @drewwanamaker1)

This is another play that did the rounds on Twitter and to me, this one is slightly more worrying for Forbes than the previous one. That might sound silly given the results of each play, but corners will give up deep shots from time to time and there are some fairly correctable issues that could get Forbes back on track with that deep shot. This play though is one that suggests the deep shot had a lingering impact on Forbes mentally. 

Before the snap, Forbes aligns in off coverage about eight yards off the line of scrimmage. Wilson aligns in a tighter split this time, inside the numbers instead of outside of them. That gives him the space to potentially break outside but still leaves him a threat to go inside or vertical too. Having already been beat deep and now having a wider range of routes to think about, Forbes is caught playing passive. This defense is all about being aggressive and attacking the ball. In college, Forbes was excellent in playing from this type of position and immediately driving down on the route as soon as a receiver made his break. That quick and instinctual break put Forbes in positions to make plays on the ball, which is his best trait. But here we don’t see that. Here we see a Forbes that is slow to react to the break inside from Wilson and in fact shuffling backwards as Wilson makes his cut. 

Now perhaps that is the technique Forbes is being taught on that particular coverage, but when you watch how the Cowboys cornerbacks played under Dan Quinn and Joe Whitt Jr in a similar situation, they’d squat on the route and be extremely aggressive driving on it to try and contest the catch or perhaps even intercept it. Forbes lacks that aggression here, perhaps because the system is slightly different, but my guess is that it’s far more likely that Forbes was still thinking about the deep shot he gave up earlier, as well as the tighter split giving Wilson more route possibilities. Corners in the NFL need to be able to forget bad plays and move on immediately, otherwise they will get caught in two minds and end up covering nobody. We saw this with Forbes last year against the Eagles, when A.J. Brown beat him deep and then Forbes ended up playing much softer and giving up a bunch of underneath stuff. That can’t happen if Forbes is to be successful in the NFL.