When Forbes was waived by the Commanders on Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024, he found out he was claimed by the Rams that Sunday night, right before the deadline for the waiver claim period (typically that claiming period lasts 24 hours).
“I was excited for a fresh opportunity, a fresh start,” Forbes said. “Got here and just got to work instantly.”
The work began well before Forbes stepped onto his new team’s practice field.
On his first day in the Rams’ facility – the same day his flight landed in Los Angeles – assistant head coach/pass game coordinator Aubrey Pleasant brought him into his office, “and we just talked for a long time, and even started watching film on me on what happened in Washington.” Forbes said it’s a conversation he always remembers, one that is the reason he is the way he is today.
“Leave that in the past, like, that’s your past,” Pleasant told him. “You got a brand new start here. Don’t let nothing that happened to you in the past dictate how you going to perform here.”
Pleasant said it was “very similar” to the meeting he had with former Rams cornerbacks Marcus Peters and Jalen Ramsey when they first joined the team, in terms of expressing his delight and excitement about his opportunity to coach them, but also incorporating self reflection about why they were in their respective situations to be here.
“Each one of those gentleman had a different set of circumstances which gave me an opportunity to be able to coach them,” Pleasant told theRams.com. “I know in that first meeting, he (Forbes) thought we were gonna talk a lot about football, but we probably did everything but.”
The last 20 minutes of that first meeting were spent going over a film cut-up of Forbes playing his best ball for the Commanders, but also some things Pleasant thought he could do better.
“But it was easy to get that film,” Pleasant said. “Because of his transparency and his humility, he had already kind of talked about some of those things.”
Pleasant’s next step in restoring Forbes’ confidence involved both football and personal aspects.
From a football standpoint, Pleasant wanted Forbes to “delve deep into” being a technician, a coaching point that came from what Pleasant had seen on film.
“I knew he had been blessed with an unbelievable set of skills, but I knew that if he honed in on his technique, he would watch some of the plays he would’ve struggled to make at this level become a little easier,” Pleasant explained.
From a personal standpoint, Pleasant wanted Forbes to “calm his over-eagerness to go out and prove the world wrong.” Pleasant explained they had “really good play” at the cornerback position at that time with players playing to their full potential, so it would be up to Forbes to be a “really good” role player and learn until his opportunity arrived.
Asked if it was difficult to curtail that over-eagerness initially, Pleasant said the first thing he said to Forbes was that he saw frustration come when Forbes was told he wasn’t going to be playing, but he also explained that because of the way Forbes was perceived at the time, everything from that point was going to be building what they needed. They wanted to have a long-term plan, and Pleasant said Forbes bought into that.
“I did promise him that before the season’s over, he if followed what we thought was the plan, he would find himself an opportunity to play,” Pleasant said. “Now, how much that would be, when that would be, we would never know, but I promised him, if he took care of what he needed to, he would get a chance to play.”