Camp Countdown: Von Miller has little to do with winning Defensive POY
Jun 25, 2019, 3:43 PM | Updated: 5:48 pm
Since being drafted by the Denver Broncos second-overall in 2011, Von Miller has been to seven Pro Bowls, named to three first-team All-Pro squads and won a Super Bowl.
Miller has earned NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year, Pro Bowl Defensive MVP and Super Bowl MVP.
The pass rusher holds five Broncos franchise sack records — career (98.0), single season (18.5 in 2012), playoff career (6.5), single postseason (5 in 2015) and single postseason game (2.5 twice in 2015).
The one accolade that’s managed to elude Miller, however, is Defensive Player of the Year, falling just short on multiple occasions (by only one vote to Khalil Mack in 2017).
But, with a formidable threat opposite him on the line of scrimmage once again, in the form of second-year pro Bradley Chubb, could Miller be due to earn the award in 2019?
Perhaps surprising to some, it depends on the Broncos offense.
“You can’t be a 6- or 7-win team and expect Von to put up the numbers to be Defensive Player of the Year. You’ve got to have a team like we did in 2012,” said Brandon Stokley, co-host of “Stokley and Zach” and member of the 2012 Broncos.
“You’ve got to have an offense like that, where teams are like, ‘Well, you know what? Guess what we’re going to have to do. We’re going to have to score a lot of points. Got to throw the football.’”
When pass rusher like Miller and Chubb have a good offense, Stokley said, and their team is playing with a lead, they can “pin (their) ears back” and get a handful of “cheap sacks, easy sacks.”
“Because you have a good offense. Because you’re winning football games. You’re a winning football team,” Stokley said. “And, I don’t think they have that football team this year to complement Von Miller.”
However, Stokley’s co-host, Zach Bye, said he believes the opposite to be true, that if Miller put up 14.5 sacks and Chubb put up 12 sacks in 2018 with a dismal offense, imagine what the duo could do with the changes to that side of the ball.
“If you can just be modest — and I feel like we say that a lot about this team — if they can just be average offensively, he’s going to have even more opportunities,” Bye said. “If it’s 14.5 sacks for Von Miller in 2018 with Case Keenum and that offense, what can it be with these guys and those rookies in year two with Joe Flacco?
“If you’re the 16th best offense in the sport as opposed to the 26th, can you get 19 sacks?”
