Arrowhead Report

BREAKING: Chiefs re-sign cornerback Bashaud Breeland

After winning Super Bowl LIV, the Kansas City Chiefs continue to Run It Back. This time, signing CB Bashaud Breeland to a one-year $4.5 million deal.

Joshua Brisco

After winning Super Bowl LIV, the Kansas City Chiefs continue to Run It Back. This time, signing CB Bashaud Breeland to a one-year $4.5 million deal.

The Chiefs' strategy for the 2020 offseason is clear: win another Super Bowl with the same roster that did it last year. Now, after freeing up $5 million in salary cap space with the restructuring of WR Sammy Watkins' contract, the Chiefs have spent $4.5 million of that savings on Breeland, who can stabilize the top end of their previously shallow cornerback group.

Breeland joined the Chiefs last offseason on a one-year deal after visiting the Chiefs in St. Joseph, Missouri the year before, then signing with the Green Bay Packers. It's another one-year deal for Breeland, which became an increasingly more plausible outcome as Breeland's free agency market seemed to be weaker than expected.

The Chiefs have now likely spent just about every dollar of salary cap space that they cleared in the Watkins restructuring, meaning that a few million dollars will likely have to be cleared out before the draft. The Chiefs could do that by releasing guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif or by giving a long-term extension to DT Chris Jones and lowering his first-year cap number.

For the Chiefs' secondary, however, Breeland is a welcome retention.

Breeland stepped in as an outstanding fit into Steve Spagnuolo's defense, continuing to develop opposite fellow cornerback Charvarius Ward. Now the Chiefs have that duo locked in for at least one more season and could still look to select a cornerback early in the 2020 NFL Draft. But now, with Breeland back in Kansas City, the Chiefs remain flexible for the draft and can know that Breeland and Ward will be reunited, as the duo of corners that helped take Chiefs to a Super Bowl championship.

The Takeaway:

This is outstanding news for the Chiefs. While Breeland was certainly looking for a multi-year deal this offseason, managing an incredibly reasonable one-year $4.5 million deal is excellent value for the Chiefs.

Breeland started to feel like more and more of a necessity as other free agent cornerbacks signed similar deals this offseason, but the Chiefs almost certainly valued Breeland above the rest in that class, retaining their own and continuing Operation Run It Back. 

Now, the Chiefs should continue to look at corners in the first or second rounds of the draft, considering that neither Breeland nor Ward are under contract in 2021 and the Chiefs lost DB Kendall Fuller to Washington in free agency. 

For more on the 2020 draft class, click here.

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Joshua Brisco
JOSHUA BRISCO

Joshua Brisco is the editor and publisher of Kansas City Chiefs On SI and has covered the Chiefs professionally since 2017 across audio and written media.

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