For the third time this season, the Denver Broncos will grace the cover of Sports Illustrated, but this time, they got it right.
Back in December, Brock Osweiler was SI’s cover athlete following his come from behind victory over the New England Patriots, and last week, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady were on the cover celebrating their 17th career matchup. This week, following an absolutely dominate performance, Von Miller will represent the Broncos defense on the SI cover.
All season, the Broncos have been headline news because of their quarterbacks, but they’re in the Super Bowl because of their defense. And if there’s one person who you can point to as the cog that makes this unit run, it’s Von Miller.
Miller finished the game with 2.5 sacks and five more quarterback pressures, but that doesn’t even begin to describe the game he had. Even when Miller didn’t reach Brady, the Patriots quarterback was forced to get the ball out quickly and inaccurately, because if Miller wasn’t there yet, he was about to be.
And as Mina Kimes of ESPN pointed out, this Super Bowl cover looks a lot different that the one from two years ago.
SI covers from 2014 and 2016 tell a pretty clear story about how Denver changed its identity pic.twitter.com/WugqXsMN28
— Mina Kimes (@minakimes) January 26, 2016
Now, let’s just hope the Broncos have one more cover in them.