Chiefs will be without Bashaud Breeland for a month. Who gets the call at cornerback?
If you’re listing reasons why the Chiefs’ mid-season defensive turnaround should survive the summer, the consistency in personnel has to arrive at the front of the conversation.
But that won’t actually be fully present. Not initially.
The Chiefs will play with two new starters in their three-cornerback sets after Bashaud Breeland received a four-game suspension from the league for off-the-field conduct. Kendall Fuller, who played the slot corner last year, departed for Washington in the offseason.
For a month, that leaves Charvarius Ward as the lone returning cornerback who played more than 15% of the defensive snaps a year ago.
“I think we have to attack it for the first game and take it one game at a time like we always talk about. Eventually, pretty quickly here, it’s going to be all Houston Texans. And we’ll have to find the person that’s going to get in there and replace Breezy,” defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo said. “We’ve had it in the back of our minds just in case. So they’ll be some guys that hopefully will step up. We’re going to try some combination of guys, too. And I wouldn’t be surprised if when it’s all said and done, there’s more than one person who would fill that role.”
As the Chiefs have plugged players in for long- and short-term injuries along other positions during this training camp — defensive line, linebacker and safety — the “next man up” has often been quite obvious. At cornerback? It’s a figurative shrug.
The Chiefs like Rashad Fenton, evident by his late-season emergence into the lineup in 2019, his rookie year. But they have viewed him primarily as a slot corner. So shifting him outside doesn’t solve the problem — they’d still have a void to fill. With Breeland absent a month, it’s the outside spot that will require attention.
The Chiefs added cornerback Antonio Hamilton from the Giants in free agency. While he’s a special teams ace, he has seen little time in a base defense, logging only 200 snaps in four seasons.
They also added two corners through the 2020 NFL Draft — Louisiana Tech’s L’Jarius Sneed in the fourth round and Tulane’s BoPete Keyes in the seventh. Keyes has primarily worked in individual drills in the early portion of camp before being eased back into team drills.
On Sneed, Spagnuolo spoke of the natural learning curve for a rookie.
“Listen, he’s made some plays for us,” Spagnuolo said. “But I think he’s got a long way to do. I really do, like most corners in this league. That’s a tough position to step in and play. I just leaned over to him in the stretch line at the end of practice here. I just told him he needs to do everything faster — I’m talking about from when the play ends, to getting back to the huddle.
“These guys know how I am. And part of this whole practice, and Coach (Andy) Reid wants it the same way, is part of it’s conditioning. And not having the offseason and all that, (we are) kinda trying to force that into him and kinda let him play. That’s a big learning curve there.”
The Chiefs might be forced to hasten the process. With Hamilton. Or with Sneed or Keyes. Or with another newcomer such as second-year Chris Lammons or rookie Lavert Hill.
That represents the full depth at the position.
“We’ll figure out who that’s going to be. We haven’t got that figured out now,” Spagnuolo said. “We’ll try to shuffle things around. My guess is it may not be just one person. But we’ll see.”