Bears’ second-round pick Anthony Miller has drawn lofty comparisons to Antonio Brown and Steve Smith, but he doesn’t want to be the “next” one of those players.
“I want to be my own guy,” Miller said. “I’m Anthony Miller at the end of the day. I don’t want to be compared to anyone. I believe I have attributes and skills that a lot of players could say they have, but I don’t think there’s one thing that I can’t do.
“I believe I’m just a different type of receiver, all in one, and someday guys are going to be like oh, you play like Anthony Miller because I believe I’m a one-of-a-kind type of guy.”
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Miller is hardly short on confidence, and it’s not hard to see why when taking even a surface-level look at his journey to get here. He received exactly zero Division I offers coming out of high school, and instead of playing at a Division II school, he decided to walk on at his hometown school of Memphis. He heard it all as a high school: He wasn’t fast enough, he wasn’t tall enough, he wasn’t good enough to play Division I ball, let alone at the FBS level.
He redshirted in 2013, then didn’t play in 2014 after suffering an injury before the season. Like so many walk-ons, he could’ve remained an anonymous scout team player to those outside the team’s football facilities. But Miller caught 47 passes for 694 yards as a redshirt sophomore in 2015, then exploded for 191 catches, 2,896 yards 32 touchdowns in 2016 and 2017.
But even with all that success, Miller still has a certain chip-on-my-shoulder outlook.
“The (Bears) believed in me and I’m not gonna — I’m gonna prove everybody who passed me up wrong,” Miller said. “The Bears are gonna get all I got. They’re going to get the Memphis Grind. I don’t think they’ve seen that yet. But I’m going to introduce them to it.”
NFL
The Bears, obviously, like Miller’s route-running skills and proven ability to produce. But the confidence and work ethic that took him from walk-on to second-round pick stood out, too, as the Bears evaluated him.
"That confidence, we like that," general manager Ryan Pace said. "Matt (Nagy) and I were just talking about that swag and that energy that he plays with, those are infections things. He’s a guy that’s 100 miles per hour every snap."