Von Miller's Super Bowl Win Highlights Broncos' Disaster

No doubt many Denver Broncos fans felt emotionally tugged in opposite directions as they watched Von Miller celebrate a 23-20 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals with his new team, the Los Angeles Rams, in the Super Bowl. One way represents joy for Miller, among the best players in Broncos history. The other points toward more tough times for the team he left behind.

The last line of Westword's report about Miller's trade to the Rams on November 1: "Congratulations, Von — for getting out while the getting was good." And those words are even truer now.

Miller, the MVP of Denver's most recent Super Bowl win in 2016, wasn't the most dominant defensive player on his squad during Super Bowl LVI (Aaron Donald deserves that distinction), but he was a significant factor in the win, with the two sacks he notched tying him for the most (4.5) in the history of the big game. And he couldn't have been more magnanimous toward his previous franchise in recent days, despite being jettisoned in the middle of last season like 250 pounds of dead weight. In the lead-up to the championship, he said that he still considers himself a Bronco; after the final whistle blew, he declared that he had been playing in honor of terrific Denver receiver Demaryius Thomas, who died unexpectedly in December.

Here's a video of his remarks:
Miller is not just a future Broncos Ring of Famer; he should be an NFL Hall of Fame lock. But he has underperformed in recent years and missed all of the 2020-2021 campaign with an ankle injury. Then, on January 15, 2021, the Parker Police Department confirmed that Miller was under investigation for an allegation it never publicly disclosed.

This admission seemed perfectly timed for the Broncos to use as an excuse to dump Miller, who was entering the final year of a $114.5 million contract he inked in 2016. If he was on the roster, Von would count as $22.15 million toward the team's salary cap; if he wasn't, the Broncos would save $18 million. But during a press conference on March 4, new general manager George Paton said that he wanted Miller back in orange if the criminal matter could be put to bed — which it promptly was, after dragging on for nearly two months.

The next day, March 5, the Parker cops issued the following statement: "The Parker Police Department submitted a criminal case against Vonnie B’VSean Miller to this office. After reviewing all of the materials, the District Attorney’s Office of the 18th Judicial District has determined that no charges will be filed in this case."

After the Broncos picked up Miller's final-year option, a happy ending for his time in Denver seemed like an actual possibility. But while he started out the 2021 season with several impressive sacks, another ankle problem put him on the shelf once again, and with the team's fortunes sinking, Paton dealt him to the Rams, presumably because he felt Miller had nothing left — a theory that definitely proved to be wrong.

Meanwhile, the Broncos missed the playoffs for the sixth consecutive year, and after they finally fired their head coach, Vic Fangio, they hired Nathaniel Hackett, offensive coordinator for the Green Bay Packers, whose quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, has been hinting for more than a year that he might be ready to leave Wisconsin. But on Super Bowl Sunday, reports began to circulate that the Packers are going all-in to keep America's most infamous COVID vaccine skeptic in the fold.

Without Rodgers, the Broncos have no viable option at field general (neither Teddy Bridgewater nor Drew Lock qualify), and with the upcoming NFL draft appearing to be among the worst for QBs in recent memory, finding a savior through that method seems unlikely. As a result, the Broncos must hope Russell Wilson is ready to leave the Seattle Seahawks, because if he's not, they'll probably be in the position of making do with another so-called bridge quarterback — a hurler intended as a stopgap until a long-term solution comes along. And that situation could well be a bridge to nowhere.

Meanwhile, Von Miller has another well-deserved Super Bowl ring — which he never would have earned had he stayed in Denver.