Miles
Well-known member
- Mar 18, 2019
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ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Meet the new Von Miller.
New hair color. New physique. New mindset.
After a season that admittedly didn't meet "the sack-master's standard," he decided the old Von Miller just wasn't cutting it. So he set out to mold a new one during the offseason.
In the process, he looked to the examples that two of basketball's greatest players, Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, had set and reexamined himself in their shadows. What he saw left him dissatisfied with himself, and over the offseason, he devoted himself to not just push his body harder than before but also his temperament as a leader.
"It's never too late to change," Miller said Tuesday, "and I might be 31 years old and it's Year 10, but it's never too late to change."
That desire to change came out of more than just his displeasure with his eight-sackperformance in 2019. Really, it began on Jan. 26 while Miller was preparing to play in the Pro Bowl, when Bryant died tragically in a helicopter accident.
Miller, who was already a fan of Bryant during his playing days, dug deep into Bryant's career and background in the days and weeks after his death. He read Bryant's memoirs, which included introductions from a former teammate and a former coach, all of which left a lasting impact.
"I read his 'Mamba Mentality' book, the foreword by Pau Gasol and the things that Phil Jackson said about him," Miller said. "I want my teammates to say that type of stuff about me, and I want my coaches to say that type of stuff about me."
That led Miller to wonder if he was holding himself to a high enough standard.
"Was I doing the things that Kobe was doing? Was I demanding more of my teammates? Was I demanding more of myself?" Miller recalled asking himself. "And I looked in the mirror, and I said I wasn't."
With the novel coronavirus pandemic shutting down his typical offseason activities, Miller devoted himself completely to reshaping his body.