Another potential Kwesi Adofo-Mensah reclamation project hit the market at the perfect time for the Vikings
Things haven't gone well for the Minnesota Vikings this year when it comes to cornerbacks. This offseason saw the tragic loss of fourth round pick Khyree Jackson to a car accident and just weeks later Mekhi Blackmon tore his ACL and missed the entire 2024 season. From a human standpoint, it was a rough month […]
Things haven't gone well for the Minnesota Vikings this year when it comes to cornerbacks.
This offseason saw the tragic loss of fourth round pick Khyree Jackson to a car accident and just weeks later Mekhi Blackmon tore his ACL and missed the entire 2024 season.
From a human standpoint, it was a rough month of July. From a football standpoint, it was brutal for the Vikings and forced them to sign bot Fabian Moreau and Stephon Gilmore to one-year contracts to fortify the defense in the short term. Long term, the Vikings have just one cornerback under contract in 2025: Dwight McGlothern.
There are numerous cornerbacks the Vikings can target in free agency this offseason, including their own Byron Murphy Jr. On Saturday, a 2023 first-round pick was just waived. Could he end up being the next reclamation project for general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah?
Emmanuel Forbes could be worth a look
On Saturday, the Washington Commanders made a surprising move by waiving cornerback Emmanuel Forbes just 12 weeks into his second season. They had made him the 16th overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft one spot ahead of Christian Gonzalez, who is thriving for the New England Patriots.
There have been a lot of struggles with Forbes over his short career. He was bullied by Philadelphia Eagles WR A.J. Brown on multiple occasions as a rookie and those struggles continued into 2024. Our Commanders writer Evan Winter gave us the lowdown on Forbes and it's just as poor as the 35.4 Pro Football Focus grade he posted on 108 defensive snaps this season.
According to Winter, Forbes was benched as a rookie and was beaten out by rookie Mike Sainristil and others this offseason. He subsequently injured his wrist and was also a healthy scratch. The biggest thing he said was: if your team runs press, he isn't the guy.
What's interesting with this Vikings defense is they don't run a lot of press, but that seems to be more because they don't have the cornerbacks to do so with regularity. Could the Vikings want to more consistently play off coverage instead of trying to play the press coverage style that Flores preferred to do in New England and Miami?
If they want to continue playing more off coverage and zone with his aggressive scheme, Forbes could be an intriguing addition to the roster, especially with Adofo-Mensah loving to give reclamation projects a chance.
My scouting report on Forbes graded him as a mid-second-round pick because there was something intriguing with his athleticism and ball skills.
Positives:
The first thing that stands out on tape is his tackling. Forbes does a great job knowing where to be in space. He fills gaps well and isn’t afraid to take on a runner in the hole.
A long strider with length in his upper body, Forbes isn’t the fastest players but has good recovery skills. His hips show enough flexion to exude the change of direction needed to stay in phase with receivers.
Ball skills are excellent with Forbes. His 14 interceptions show that, as well as his six interception returns for touchdowns. He tracks the ball well and has great recognition skills.
Forbes does his best playing off coverage and watching what goes on in front of him and recognizing everything in front of him.
Negatives:
The frame of Forbes is going to be a huge point of contention. His body is not too dissimilar to that of Cameron Dantzler with slender legs and weighing only 180 lbs. That has a big factor in his strength deficiencies.
His strength is also an issue when working through traffic. Forbes can get knocked off balance too easily and that can be an issue with more condensed space.
At the line of scrimmage, Forbes needs a lot of work. He misses with his punches and doesn’t have a lot of impact with them when he does land. He gets beat with quickness too easily.
In coverage, Forbes has a tendency to get grabby when he gets beat. That will get called in the NFL easily and he needs to get less clingy.
His size has been the biggest factor in his lack of success in the National Football League. He's been bullied on the outside by multiple receivers and has struggled to tackle. PFF has Forbes charted Forbes with 15 missed tackles (24.6% rate) on just 590 defensive snaps. That's an abysmal rate for a cornerback.
Now, not everything is bad. Forbes does have nine pass breakups and two interceptions on 69 targets. His ball skills have shined through but they haven't been enough to overcome the negatives with some of it being that he's too passive.
Should the Vikings take a chance on him? Well, that depends. Can they get him in the building after he clears waivers? It would be a major risk to inherit his fully guaranteed contract. However, bringing him in on the active roster or the practice squad on a minimum deal to see what you might be able to get out of him.
Let's also be honest here. You likely aren't ever fixing the issues Forbes has with physicality. He's incredibly slender with a 1.9th percentile weight at 166 lbs. If you can mitigate the physical element and let Forbes use his wingspan and ball skills it's worth a shot.
When you run a 4.35 40-yard dash with good arm length and hops, what's the worst that could happen? Bring him in if you can and see what happens.
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