Rich on Von Miller’s Chances to Win a 3rd Super Bowl Ring with the Dallas Cowboys

Von Miller's path to Dallas ran through a Las Vegas hot tub.

About a month ago, Miller bumped into Dak Prescott, sat down next to him and started gambling and talking. What came out was a pep talk. "It's about time for Dak," Miller said. "You got to break through one of these years. I think this year you'll be able to do it. Like you got everybody to do it." Miller insists he had no inkling he would end up wearing the star himself. Then the Cowboys reached out. "Bro, this is a sign."

Family sealed it, and so did the livestock. Miller's chicken farm is in Texas, which Rich felt obligated to clarify for the audience. That is not a metaphor. He really has one, he wears the hat, he loves talking about it, and it is not the Marshawn Lynch version of chicken.

The football case is stronger than the age would suggest. Miller had nine sacks last season with the Commanders in a limited role, which would have led the Cowboys, where Jadeveon Clowney topped the team with eight and a half.

Miller's own argument goes further than sacks, and he made it without a hint of a wink. "If it was a Hall of Fame for that, I'm going in the Hall of Fame first ballot," he said of being a teammate. "I'm probably the best teammate that ever played in the National Football League." He believes he can swing 10 to 15 plays in a given game without being on the field for them, through the defensive coordinator, the defensive line and the young guys, getting people to play at a level they would not normally reach.

Ring number three would hit differently than the first two. Miller won one in Denver in front of a million people and one in Los Angeles, a parade he remembers mostly for stopping at red lights. Rich took the opening: the show had just found the first people in Los Angeles who stop for red lights.

Dallas, Miller said, would be a holiday. Bills Mafia and Cowboys Nation are different animals, but the through line is the same, and he pointed out that people either love the Cowboys or hate them and all of them root for the Cowboys either way. A kid from Texas who played at Texas A&M bringing a trophy back to the Metroplex is a story with its own gravity, and Rich noted a Dallas trip to the Super Bowl in Los Angeles this year would be the most watched Super Bowl ever, against the Chiefs or the Bills or the Broncos.

One item remains unresolved. Fullback Hunter Lipke currently owns number 40, and negotiations are apparently afoot. Miller says he has already made an offer that cannot be refused, a lifetime supply of chicken, while insisting the digits are an afterthought next to winning games. Around the desk, the trade landed as an easy yes. Chicken for life, done, though TJ wants the Marshawn version thrown in.