Chiefs Cornerback Bashaud Breeland Confirms Four-Game Suspension
Kansas City Chiefs starting cornerback Bashaud Breeland has confirmed that he will be suspended for the first four games of the 2020 NFL season.
Breeland's confirmation follows a report from earlier Wednesday when Adam Schefter of ESPN said that Breeland was "facing a four-game suspension." If that sounds familiar, it's because Tom Pellisero of the NFL Network reported the same thing on April 29.
Pelissero's report came following this offseason's incident in South Carolina that ended in Breeland's arrest and five misdemeanor charges. However, the four-game suspension was unrelated to the South Carolina arrest. Pelissero noted that Breeland was appealing the suspension. Schefter's report made no mention of an appeal — either ongoing or completed — so there was uncertainty regarding Breeland's status until he confirmed the news himself in an Instagram post later Wednesday afternoon.
"As previously announced by the League, I have received a 4 game suspension for off-the-field matters. I post this today because I want to apologize, publicly, to the entire Chiefs organization, my coaches, teammates, family and fans. I accept full responsibility for my actions, and I look forward to getting back on the field with my teammates to defend our Super Bowl Title. Thank you to everyone for your continued support, and Let's Go Chiefs!"
Breeland will miss the Chiefs' matchups against the Houston Texans, Los Angeles Chargers, Baltimore Ravens and New England Patriots.
Chiefs head coach Andy Reid briefly discussed Breeland's arrest in a virtual press conference on May 1 and was asked if he had spoken to Breeland since the incident.
"Yeah, I have," Reid said. "I have talked to him. Right now, it’s a little bit of what [General Manager] Brett [Veach] mentioned yesterday, just that we’ll let it play out with the law enforcement side of things and then evaluate it from there."
Reid was also asked about Breeland on Wednesday, in light of reports about his impending suspension, but before Breeland confirmed it himself. Reid focused on the depth behind Breeland.
"As far as the young corners, we’ll see," Reid said. "Time will tell here as we go, but we have a good nucleus of guys. It’ll all sort out here in the next couple of weeks. Everybody is working hard and getting a lot of reps, which is good, and we should be fine there.”
Sam Mellinger of The Kansas City Star reported that the Chiefs were aware of Breeland's pending suspension when they signed him to a one-year deal. In his May 1 presser, Reid also discussed what the Chiefs are expecting to see from their cornerback groups for whatever length of time they could be without Breeland.
"Yeah, so Brett’s done a nice job of loading up at the corner position on that side of it," Reid said. "Then what we do with this, we’re just going to let the law enforcement part of it take its course, and let’s see what exactly went on with the situation. I know there’s video out there, I’ve seen the video, I’ve talked to the kid. But let’s find out what the base of this thing was, what caused everything to take place. I’m curious to see that part, as we all are, I think. And then we’ll evaluate it from there. But we’ve always done this, we’ve always let law enforcement kind of take it and then we go from there."
