The Vikings' Bashaud Breeland Signing Turned Into a Flop of Epic Proportions
It won't carve out a significant place in franchise history because it wasn't a big-money move for a prominent player, but the Vikings' Bashaud Breeland signing this offseason ended up as one of their worst free agent acquisitions ever.
Breeland started the first 13 games for the Vikings and had issues on and off of the field the entire time. On Saturday, he was waived after an altercation with teammates and coaches at practice that got so bad general manager Rick Spielman had to get involved to break it up.
The process behind the signing wasn't bad. The Vikings needed more cornerback depth, and Breeland was a veteran who had played well for the Chiefs over the past couple seasons. Giving him a one-year deal worth up to $4 million (his cap hit was $2.73 million) was a reasonable decision.
It just didn't work out.
Breeland got off to a terrible start, almost single-handedly costing the Vikings a victory in their season opener in Cincinnati. According to PFF, he missed five tackles in that game, allowed 107 yards and two touchdowns in coverage, and was flagged for pass interference.
On the field, things didn't get much better the rest of the way. Breeland had a couple decent games and created four takeaways (two forced fumbles and two interceptions), but he mostly really struggled to cover and tackle. His 795 yards allowed, per PFF, ranks second among all players at the time of his release. His 15 missed tackles are tied for first among corners. Breeland gave up more than 100 yards in four different games and committed six penalties. He dropped numerous potential interceptions throughout the season, including a couple — against the Cowboys and Lions — that could've prevented losses.
Breeland simply wasn't good enough for the Vikings to tolerate some off-the-field incidents that added up over the course of the season.
In October, Breeland tweeted "I’m convince yal love my Johnson in yal mouth enjoy the win and shut tf up" at fans after a win over the Lions. That came just a couple days after he clapped back at a reporter who brought up his PFF ranking at a press conference, saying that person would be at the bottom of reporter rankings if they existed.
Also in October, Breeland was sued for $15K by neighbors for continually smoking marijuana despite that going against the rules of his apartment complex. The civil suit claimed management of the complex weren't disrupting Breeland because of his status as a Vikings player.
The final straw was the incident at Saturday's practice. Breeland reportedly got into it verbally with Dalvin Cook, Sheldon Richardson, and others before Spielman broke things up.
And that was the end of the line in Minnesota for one of the most spectacular Vikings free agent flops in recent memory.
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