Broncos linebacker Von Miller would need one of the biggest individual sack days on record Sunday to wind up setting a new single-season record for sacks in a season, but he knows who he wants to break the record if he can’t do it.
Miller told Lindsey Jones of USA Today that he’ll have more chances to break the record and that he’s “hoping” 49ers linebacker Aldon Smith can get there this season by “finishing stronger” than he did last year. He’s not rooting against Texans defensive end J.J. Watt -- Miller wore a bracelet supporting Watt’s charitable efforts last year -- but he’s definitely pulling for Smith, a player he’d like to call a teammate at some point down the road.
“Me, Marcell Dareus and Aldon Smith, we talked about doing the whole LeBron, Wade and Bosh thing,” Miller said in reference to the Miami Heat trio that joined forces two years ago and won last season’s NBA championship. “We talked about doing that somewhere down the line.”
NFL quarterbacks have likely thought of more comforting things than Miller and Smith coming at them from opposite ends of the line, so they’ll be reassured to learn that any team-up is unlikely to happen in the immediate future. Any of those quarterbacks that find themselves on Denver’s schedule will be less reassured to hear other goals that Miller set for himself when he was coming into the league as part of the impressive 2011 defensive draft class.
“I didn’t want to just be the best linebacker on the board. I wanted the best defensive player,” Miller said. “I might not have looked like a traditional outside linebacker or a traditional defensive end, but I wanted teams to see me as the best defensive player out there.”
That wouldn’t be a bad consolation prize for not setting the sacks record and it’s certainly a goal Miller can reach if he keeps playing at the same level we’ve seen in his first two seasons.