Emmanuel Forbes had a rough rookie season, getting benched at one point, and reported to camp having apparently gained 15 pounds in the offseason. However, in the joint practice with the Jets and the preseason opener Saturday, Forbes once again had some series issues.
A caller had some thoughts about it all for Chris Russell on Monday, and that’s when Rooster laid out what he thinks is going on with the 2023 first-round pick.
“The only way to get better is on the training, and Emmanuel just can’t cover big men,” Stanley in Bowie told Chris. “So bring in Martavis Bryant, you get both of them on the job training until cutdown day. If he can’t cover Bryant, and old man compared to him, we cut them both.”
So, yeah, we remember the AJ Brown debacle against Philly, and Chris understands – but the real problem is the supposed ballhawk seems to have forgotten how to hawk?
“Let me give you in a nutshell what I think is wrong with Emmanuel Forbes. I hear a lot that he’s not physical enough, he doesn't jam or press guys, and allows free releases, and all of that is true,” Chris said. “But you know what you don’t hear? Forbes rarely if ever turns his head around and locates the football. He has no ball awareness at all in a lot of cases – even on the play he broke up down the sideline early in the game, he sort of turned his head but didn’t really. He’s not finding the football!”
Rooster thinks Forbes could have had some DPI thrown his way on that one, but he got away with it, so huzzah – but still, the problem is right there.
“I can't tell you how many times I've seen Emmanuel Forbes get torched and have pretty good coverage, like right there, because he doesn't turn his head around and doesn't locate the ball,” Chris said. “They teach you to play through the receiver – if the receiver starts to go up with his hands, what are you supposed to do? If you’re not gonna turn your head around, you're supposed to go through the hands, because that's your indicator that the ball is there! That’s hard to do timing-wise, but turn your damn head around, or play through the receiver’s hands and eyes! You have to do one or the other, and too often, I haven’t seen him do a good enough job on that.”
That’s a problem baseline, let alone for a guy who was supposed to be built on that.
“The book on him coming out of Mississippi State was zone corner who uses his eyes and his ball recognition skills – and last year, I thought that he was gambling too much, trying to anticipate too much, and he got himself in trouble and just missed a couple,” Chris said. “Maybe some of that was not recognizing ball right away, I don’t know, but this is as big of a problem for me as the lack of physicality from Emmanuel Forbes.”
That doesn’t mean Forbes is in danger of being cut, mostly because of his contract, but…
“What they should be doing is working out more corners. Stephon Gilmore, who was with Quinn and Whitt, was working out for Indianapolis,” Chris said. “Forbes has made some plays, and I’m not ready to give up, but at some point, you gotta say, ‘we don't have any top-flight answers.’”