After struggling to contain AJ Brown in the Washington Commanders' overtime loss against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday and struggling in the first half on Thursday night, rookie cornerback Emmanuel Forbes was benched in the second half of the 40-20 beatdown by the Chicago Bears.
After the game, head coach Ron Rivera said the thought process of benching the struggling first-round pick came down to "hoping that he would bounce back from last week" but "we just felt at that point it was time to make a move."
On Friday, the head coach elaborated on what he and the coaching staff need to see from Forbes moving forward.
"I think one of the things that we've got to continue to do with him and continue to stress is that work your technique, work your technique, work your technique," Rivera said. "The young man has a tremendous skillset, little all over the place with his technique, work his technique. We'll continue to work with him just like we will with all of our young guys.
"You know, we really believe that a lot of these young guys have opportunities and ability. We just got to continue to work with them."
When asked about some hiccups Forbes had during training camp, specifically during a joint practice in Baltimore, and why it was taking the 16th overall selection from this year's draft longer to correct them, Rivera said that during training cap they "saw certain things that told us he's getting it."
"He's doing the things that you would like him to do, we saw it in some of the practices, we saw it in some of the preseason games, those little detailed things that he was getting better at," he continued. "And he's got to continue to clean those things up, and he's got to be more disciplined and use his techniques that we're teaching him."
Listen to Rivera's full comments to the media from Friday on the audio player above.