After winning Super Bowl MVP in February, Von Miller has had a long offseason. The pass-rusher appeared on Ellen and SNL, was a contestant on Dancing With The Stars and, oh by the way, signed a six-year $114.5 million contract.
According to a new profile of Miller in Sports Illustrated, written by the always-excellent Greg Bishop, the Broncos star has taken 61 flights, visited more than 25 cities and racked up more than 71,000 airline miles since last season ended.
Among Miller’s adventures this offseason was an incredible encounter with Kanye West, in which the rapper reluctantly signed a pair of Yeezy sneakers.
Backstage at SNL, after assisting with Weekend Update and trolling his title game opponent with a digression on gravitational waves—“these waves are everywhere in the universe, just like I’m everywhere when Cam Newton closes his eyes”—Miller bumps into another rapper, Kanye West. The Denver pass rusher happens to have with him a pair of Adidas sneakers from Kanye’s line, the Yeezy 750 Boosts, gray high-tops with thick soles and various straps—the kind of shoes that look dreamed up by an astronaut on acid.
Miller asks for an autograph, but Kanye leans back against a wall, ignoring the football star until Kim Kardashian, Kanye’s reality-star wife, intervenes. Miller retrieves a Sharpie, Kim hands it to Kanye, and the rapper signs the shoes without saying a word, as if he’s welcoming Miller, in the most Kanye way possible, into the world of celebrity.
“His signature was terrible,” Miller says. “But still: It was pretty dope.”
Kanye is famously slow to smile, but you’d think maybe he’d loosen up a little for the Super Bowl MVP. Apparently not. Thank god for Kim Kardashian, though!
In the SI piece, Miller says that after his whirlwind offseason, in which he made 47 television appearances, he one day wants “to be like Michael Strahan,” a crossover TV personality. If that’s the case, he had better get as much practice as he can hobnobbing with celebrities.
