How does Emmanuel Forbes fit under Dan Quinn in Washington?
Taking a closer look how the Commanders 2023 first-round pick fits under new head coach Dan Quinn
It’s fair to say that Commanders cornerback Emmanuel Forbes didn’t have a great rookie season. Expectations for Forbes were sky high after the draft. Washington had an ascending defense that was strong in zone coverages and drafted Forbes in the first round as a seemingly perfect fit. The zone coverages the Commanders played in 2022 allowed their cornerbacks to play off and with vision, and when Forbes was put in that position in college, he showed natural talents of diagnosing route combinations and ball skills to create interceptions. However, once the season came around, the Commanders decided to play a lot more man coverage and Forbes had a lot of issues, leading to him getting burned on double moves and eventually benched.
Now Forbes will be playing his second season in the NFL under new head coach Dan Quinn, who built a strong reputation in the NFL from the Seahawks Cover-3 era. After failing to replicate that success in Atlanta though, Quinn arrived in Dallas with a fresh mindset. He completely changed his scheme and the Cowboys majored in man coverage. Quinn stated in his introductory press conference that while he will continue to try and innovate and grow, there will be plenty of carry over from the system he ran in Dallas.
So we’re now left in a situation where Forbes was the Commanders 2023 first-round pick because of his fit in zone systems, was benched in his rookie year for struggling in man coverage and now the new head coach is likely to install a system based more on man coverage than zone. On paper, it’s a bad match. However, dive a little deeper and it could well be a system that makes best use of Forbes and his instincts to ball hawk. The type of man coverage that the Cowboys played under Quinn wasn’t always the typical press coverage style with a corner up at the line of scrimmage looking to be physical and jam a receiver to disrupt their release. Instead, he often had his cornerbacks playing significantly off the line of scrimmage so they could play top down on everything and attack.
Here we see Cowboys cornerback Stephon Gilmore aligned about eight yards off the line of scrimmage. He’s still playing man coverage against Lions receiver Josh Reynolds, he’s just doing it from a position that grants him a wider field of vision and one that enables him to drive down aggressively on anything underneath. As the ball is snapped and the receiver works into his route, Gilmore is able to see both the receiver and the quarterback. As soon as the receiver starts to make his cut, Gilmore can also see into the backfield that the quarterback is beginning his throwing motion. Those two indicators are all Gilmore needs to transition into attack mode and he drives down on the route immediately. He arrives just before the ball does and he gets his hand on the pass to break it up.
That style of play was consistent among all the Cowboys corners under Quinn. Being able to play off and with vision allowed them to stay on top of everything and switch into attack mode as soon as they saw indicators of the ball being thrown. To enable that style to work, Quinn had to be aggressive up front too. If he wants his corners to be super aggressive and driving down instantly on anything underneath, he needs the pass rush to protect them from double moves and deep shots. The rush and coverage being in sync is key, but Quinn managed to create that environment in Dallas and his corners thrived as a result.
This time we see Cowboys cornerback DaRon Bland in a similar situation to the play we just saw from Gilmore. He’s aligned about eight yards off the line of scrimmage and is in man coverage against the outside receiver, who runs a similar out route. Like I mentioned, the pass rush is key to allowing corners to play in this way, so Quinn has the Cowboys rush six defenders here to ensure the pass rush will force the ball out quickly underneath. With the ball coming out quickly, Bland is able to sit on the route instead of having to worry about the receiver running by him, which puts him in a great position to undercut the throw and intercept it.
In DaRon Bland and Trevon Diggs, the Cowboys have two corners that are super aggressive in jumping routes and looking to get their hands on the ball to create turnovers. Forbes is very similar in that style, so there’s every chance this system could suit him well. We did see glimpses of him playing this way in Washington this season.
This play comes from the Commanders 2023 season opener against the Cardinals, a game in which Forbes was making his NFL debut. On this play, the Commanders bring a blitz that is designed to look like Cover-0 but is actually a five-man pressure with a few players dropping out into coverage. Forbes is left isolated one-on-one against the receiver to the left of the formation. He’s aligned about seven yards off the line of scrimmage with quite significant inside leverage. That means when the ball is snapped, he has to open his hips slightly to the sideline to get a feel for the receiver but he still keeps his vision into the backfield to look for the throw. He doesn’t jump the route quite as aggressively as we saw the two Cowboys corners in the earlier clips as the quarterback waits for his receiver to break before making the throw, but he does break on the ball once he spots the quarterback beginning his throwing motion. The ball ended up being thrown too far outside, but Forbes was in a position to contest the throw had it been more accurate.
Of course, it’s not just out routes that Forbes will face, but this style of play works against any type of underneath route. Again, we’ve seen a few glimpses of it working for Forbes throughout this season.
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