Speedie was drafted by the National Football League's Detroit Lions in the late rounds of the 1942 draft. Fred Mandel, the owner of the Lions, visited him at Fort Warren and offered a contract worth $2,800 a year. Speedie wanted to sign immediately, but Mandel preferred to wait until after the war. By the time the war drew to a close in 1945, however, Speedie was considering signing with the Chicago Rockets, a team in the new All-America Football Conference (AAFC). He was pursued by the Rockets after playing well against a team at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro from which many of the Rockets' players were drawn. Speedie was also spotted by Paul Brown, who had been the head coach of a military team at Great Lakes Naval Station that played against the Broncos. Brown, who was starting a new AAFC team called the Cleveland Browns, sent a friend named Jackie Ranen to sign Speedie for $7,000 in 1946.