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There are four players that, in my mind, stand out above the rest as being most strongly affected by the coaching change from Ron Rivera LLC to Dan Quinn & Co, and all of them are on defense. Two of those players are LB Jamin Davis and CB Emmanuel Forbes, but their situations are for another day. Today, I want to highlight two young safeties — 2023 second-round pick Quan Martin and 2021 fifth-round pick Darrick Forrest.
For both of these players, 2024 looks to be a season of change that will almost certainly shape (or re-shape) the direction of their remaining careers.
Quan Martin
Quan Martin had a good rookie season in 2023, though it started off slowly. Martin didn’t log a defensive snap in the first five weeks, and was even inactive for the Denver game in Week 2. He got a handful of defensive snaps from Weeks 6-8 (17 snaps in 3 games), but from that point onwards, he played an increasingly important role in the team’s defense, with his snaps exceeding 30 per game in Weeks 12 & 13 before he started and played pretty much full time for the final four weeks of the season.
One factor in Martin’s progression was certainly his own abilities, but it was also influenced by what was happening with the rest of the defensive backfield — a situation that was in flux for most of the season.
Jack Del Rio opened up the 2023 season by once again trying to turn Benjamin St-Juste into a slot corner. There’s no telling how long that effort would have persisted if first-round pick Emmanuel Forbes had not struggled so much on the field. In 7 games (out of 9 total) from Weeks 6-15, Forbes played a combined 21 defensive snaps, and was actually benched for a couple of games in that stretch. With Forbes on the sidelines, St-Juste was called on to play boundary corner, and Del Rio increasingly turned to safety Quan Martin to play nickel coverage.
Inflection
This offseason, the Commanders drafted Mike Sainristil in the second round. He is a ‘specialist’ as a slot corner, which would seem to threaten Martin’s role on the team, but that’s not really what appears to be happening.
Instead, defensive coordinator Joe Whitt seems to be looking at Martin as a potential starting safety to be paired with the 5th-year player, Jeremy Chinn, who was signed in free agency to replace Kam Curl.
To some extent, head coach Dan Quinn and Whitt seem to embrace the concept of ‘positionless’ players (think of how they utilized linebacker Micah Parsons as a pass rusher in Dallas), so we may see Chinn lined up at safety, linebacker, or blitzing the quarterback. It’s likely that Whitt’s scheme defines players less rigidly than the traditional roles of free/strong safety and WILL, MIKE and SAM linebackers. In this defense, Quan Martin appears to be stepping into the role of free safety, though he will probably play multiple positions/roles.
What does seem likely, based on OTAs and minicamp, is that Martin will see the field a lot in 2024. Unless things change during training camp, we will probably see Martin on the field early and often as a safety, but moving into the nickelback position when Sainristil is off the field or when offensive scheme or matchups dictate the need for him to be there.
Quan Martin probably had the highlight play of May & June when he snagged an interception in a less than conventional way:
UNREAL pic.twitter.com/cEFHQMi3uP
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) June 12, 2024
If Martin can thrive as part of a refreshed defensive secondary under a new coaching staff, he has the opportunity to cement his place on the Commanders defensive roster for years to come, turning himself into one of the rarest of living creatures — a successful 21st-century 2nd round pick for the Washington franchise.
Darrick Forrest
It’s not hard to make the case that Darrick Forrest has been a successful 5th-round pick for the Washington franchise. He has started over 50% of the games he’s played since being drafted. He also played 81% of his available defensive snaps in 2022 and 99% of his available defensive snaps in 2023.
His overall defensive grade from PFF has been consistently above average, at 66.1, 67.0, and 61.1 from 2021-23. With his play in 2022 & 2023, Forrest became popular with many fans based on his hustle and hard hitting style.
But, if you scratch to see below the surface, it’s also not hard to make the case that Darrick Forrest has not been a successful player for Washington. As a rookie, he didn’t play at all in September or October of the ‘21 season, and when he was finally healthy and on the field, he played almost exclusively on special teams, logging a mere 26 defensive snaps for the 2021 season. Last year (2023), Forrest started and played 100% of the defensive snaps until he injured his shoulder, putting him on IR and bringing an abrupt and untimely end to his season in Week 5.
Inflection
Back in February and early March, I thought that Darrick Forrest would be the presumptive starting free safety heading into training camp, but the current coaching staff seems to have different ideas. Forrest had one pretty good season in 2022, and two injury-affected seasons in ‘21 & ‘23. Based on reports from OTAs & minicamp, it appears as if Quan Martin is ahead of Forrest on the current depth chart, such as it is.
Unless training camp changes things, it looks like Darrick Forrest is going to have to get onto the field defensively in 3-safety sets or when Sainristil or Martin is off the field.
Equally important to his future will be the ability for Darrick Forrest to stay healthy, as he did in 2022. That season, Forrest played 850 defensive snaps; in his two other seasons combined, he played just 354.
Adam Peters and Dan Quinn did not draft Darrick Forrest, and he is in the final year of his rookie contract. If he wants to stay in DC and wear burgundy & gold, he’ll need to remain healthy and play at a high level every time he sees the field. The alternative is to enter free agency in 2025 as an oft-injured, former 5th round pick who had one good season in 2022. That would establish him in the free agent market as a backup safety with limited prospects looking for a vet minimum deal in 2025.
Darrick Forrest needs to balance the scales on his career with a strong 2024 performance in 17 games, setting himself up as a valuable member of the defense as he completes his rookie deal and looks for a lucrative contract as a free agent in 2025.