Miller cracking wise on teammates again after big comeback
By ARNIE STAPLETON
AP Pro Football Writer
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Von Miller is officially back.
The Broncos star linebacker celebrated his return to the lineup with a pair of sacks against the Giants last weekend after missing all of 2020 with an ankle injury.
His successful return, however, was really sealed Thursday when he turned his weekly podium appearance into something more of an open mic night as he’s done so many times over the past decade in Denver.
Miller was asked what words of encouragement he might have for rookie cornerback Patrick Surtain II in his first start Sunday at Jacksonville and he went on and on about the first-round pick’s attributes before finally finding something he can upgrade.
“He carries himself in a way that there’s not too many things that you would give him advice about,” Miller said. “He pretty much does everything right. He does everything how he’s supposed to. He comes to work early, he’s fast, he’s athletic, he can guard the No. 2 receiver. He could blitz, he could do whatever you want him to do.
“He’s 6-3 and he runs a 4.3. He can cover the slot receiver, he can cover your big possession receivers, he just has the total package.”
But not the best wardrobe, apparently.
“Whatever advice I could give him would probably be the way he dresses,” Miller deadpanned. “But he has his thumb on everything else. He’s going to be a great player in the league.”
So, what exactly would make Surtain more stylish?
“Just rookies, you know, it just takes a while for them to get the fashion things down,” explained Miller, a football fashionista who said all of this while sporting a pair of the futuristic RNNR “Sand” sneakers from adidas YEEZY, which run about $1,400.
“But hey, if you’re performing the way Pat performs, you can pretty much wear and dress however you want to dress.”
Told that defensive end Dre’Mont Jones had just suggested Miller stole a sack from him Sunday, Miller retorted it was probably two sacks he stole from Jones, who is eight years his junior.
“Both of those sacks that I had Dre’Mont was right there,” Miller said. “And you could tell, everybody’s supposed to be celebrating and you just see Dre’Mont just look at me and walk off.”
Miller’s 108 sacks are the most in the NFL since he entered the league in 2011 and rank 24th all time.
It took Miller a minute to recall the most recent time a teammate beat him to the QB.
“Uh, I mean, there’s a lot of times that guys beat me and I feel the same way Dre’ felt, like, ‘Dang, that should have been me,’” Miller said, although those instances didn’t come to mind right away.
“It really sucks when you get a really, really good rush, like you just get an amazing rush and you feel in your heart and in your mind like I’m about to get the quarterback and then you just see somebody just run right in front of you and get the sack.
“Now, that I think about it, I think (Bradley) Chubb has done me like that,” Miller added, recalling the time he got to Patrick Mahomes and ran the Chiefs quarterback right into Chubb.
“And we both fell down at the same time and they called it a half-sack,” Miller recounted. “So, I couldn’t put our relationship on the line by turning it in (to the league) saying, ‘This is my whole sack.’ … I didn’t really want to put that strain on our friendship like that by being selfish — even though the sack was supposed to be a whole sack by me.”
Another time, Shelby Harris was credited with sharing a sack with Miller when they piled on Ben Roethlisberger in a win over the Steelers in 2018 that Harris sealed with a last-second end zone interception.
“So, me and Shelby is not like me and Chubb,” Miller said. “I had to turn that one in and get my full sack. And Shelby had the pick in that game to save it. So, I just let Shelby have that and I had that one overturned to a full sack.”
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