When fans ultimately look back on Von Miller’s celebrated professional career, they will remember one of the most heralded pass rushers in NFL history, a highly effective defender who received countless accolades over the course of his immensely productive career spanning more than a decade.
With that in mind, it’s perhaps a little surprising that prior to the Buffalo Bills’ recent Week 1 clash with the Arizona Cardinals, he hadn’t recorded a sack since November 13, 2022. About two weeks after that date, he suffered a torn ACL in a Thanksgiving Day clash with the Detroit Lions, an injury that sidelined him for the remainder of the 2022 season and the first four games of the 2023 season. Upon his eventual return, he looked like a shadow of his former self and was at times more of a detriment than an asset to Buffalo’s defense, finishing the season with just three tackles and zero sacks.
Bills leadership claimed to see signs of the old Miller as the season progressed, setting the stage for a 2024 offseason in which several within the organization noted that he had fully recovered from his 2022 injury. Talk can only go so far, however; members of the Buffalo fan base were eager to see Miller perform in Week 1 against the Cardinals to see if the NFL’s active all-time sack leader really would find his form again or whether he would again be a rather expensive and ineffective rotation defender.
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For the most part, he delivered.
The 35-year-old recorded two total tackles in the win and was praised for a sack on a play in which he forced Arizona tackle Kelvin Beachum back to quarterback Kyler Murray. It wasn’t the most elegant or impressive sack of Miller’s career, but it was his first in nearly two years, a quarterback takedown that lifted the proverbial weight off his back and could lay the foundation for a comeback season in 2024.
Miller played a crucial role in Buffalo’s pass rush rebounding from a poor start against the Cardinals, finishing the game with four total sacks (Greg Rousseau notched the other three). The veteran spoke after the game about his sack and the overall performance of the defensive front, telling the coverage that this takedown felt a little different.
“It felt good,” Miller said. “You think about it for so long, you think about it all last year, and then when you get hurt, ‘can’t wait to get a sack, can’t wait to get a sack,’ and then when you get the sack, it’s just business as usual. You act like you’ve been there before.”
“I’m not going to lie, it definitely felt good after the type of season I went through and the type of season we all went through last year, to come out here and get multiple sacks and really just do what we do and go out there and show everything we worked on in the offseason, it definitely feels good.”
Few expect Miller to return to being the dominant pass rusher who once posted double-digit sack seasons with ease, but if he can return to form and be a reliable member of the defensive front again, it would be a huge boost to the Buffalo defense. One-game sampling is often misleading, but it looks like the veteran will be productive again this fall; his next opportunity to torment opposing quarterbacks will come when the Bills face the Miami Dolphins this Thursday night in a Week 2 matchup.
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