Von Miller shares advice he gave Bradley Chubb about his ACL recovery

[Miles]

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — As Bradley Chubb approaches surgery and rehab for his injured ACL, he can take solace in the fact that his teammate has been through the same process.


Von Miller suffered the same injury during a Week 16 game against the Texans in 2013, and he missed the Broncos’ ensuing run to Super Bowl XLVIII.


And during Miller’s recovery process, he found out the most difficult part was the seemingly endless amount time it takes to return to game action.


“The first six months are like [you do] nothing,” Miller said Thursday. “He can’t really do anything. He posted yesterday, ‘I’ve never been so bored in my life.’ That’s just part of it. You’re not out here in the practice field. You’re not in the film rooms. You’re just trying to get back right. For me, I watched a lot of movies. I got caught up on all the old movies. I watched all of 'Star Wars.' I watched all of 'The Matrix,' all the movies. I read a couple of books. I read 'Lone Survivor' and 'End of Secrets.' I tried to just find some type of motivation through others that had to overcome some deal of adversity.”


The challenge, though, is one nearly every elite athlete has had to face. Miller did his best to explain that to Chubb in the aftermath of the injury.


“It was tough,” Miller said. “I told Bradley, every great player in the history of the league has had some type of adversity or some type of big-time injury that they had to overcome. You look at [Patriots QB] Tom Brady, [former Broncos OLB] DeMarcus Ware, [former Broncos QB] Peyton Manning. That’s just a small list of them. You’re going to have to overcome some adversity like that. He got his early. I got mine early as well. He’ll overcome it. He’s a machine. He’ll overcome it. He’ll be all right.”


A good sign for Chubb? Miller returned in 2014 to record 14 sacks, the third-highest total of his career.


“At that point you can’t really dwell in the past,” Miller said. “It’s funny once you overcome stuff like that you can’t really just [dwell on it] — internally you feel good about it, but football is what are you going to do next, what are you going to do next, what are you going to do next? Whenever I had sacks out there, I just felt good to be able to sack the quarterback again. I wasn’t worried about what I’m going to do next.”