Breeland Speaks will miss at least 3 months for Chiefs with right knee injuries

The reported timeline on Kansas City Chiefs defensive lineman Breeland Speaks is three months out after suffering a few injuries to his knee.

The Kansas City Chiefs have learned that they will be without second-year defensive lineman Breeland Speaks for the majority of the upcoming season after he suffered numerous injuries to his right knee in the team’s preseason exhibition against the visiting San Francisco 49ers on Saturday night.

Speaks is scheduled for surgery in Houston on Tuesday, per Brooke Pryor, to repair his right knee. He also suffered a sprained MCL. Per Nate Taylor of The Athletic, the optimistic timeline for a return from Speaks is three months, which means he could return late in the season for the stretch run and postseason to provide additional depth along the team’s defensive front.

Speaks is general manager Brett Veach’s first ever selection in the NFL Draft, a second round pick in 2018 out of Mississippi. Speaks was a defensive lineman at Ole Miss who attempted to convert to outside linebacker in Bob Sutton’s defensive scheme last year. This season, however, Speaks has been back along the line in Steve Spagnuolo’s new system.

Speaks, who is only 23, has been a slight disappointment since he was first taken by the Chiefs, but the switch in defenses was supposed to help reinvigorate players like Speaks and Tanoh Kpassagnon who were likely misused under Sutton—or at least asked to do things they weren’t skilled enough to handle well.

Speaks played in all 16 games last year for the Chiefs and started 4 of them. He finished with 1.5 sacks, 1 forced fumble, 8 quarterback hits and 24 total tackles.