FRISCO, Texas — The next piece of important business in the Von Miller timeline has been officially completed. The future first ballot Hall of Famer signed his first contract, the one with the Dallas Cowboys, a few weeks ago and, on Thursday, he signed another with Hunter Luepke.
Miller awarded Luepke partial ownership in his company, Greener Pastures Chicken, making him a part owner alongside Patrick Mahomes, Nick Foles and Drew Brees — securing the No. 40 jersey in the process.
That groundbreaking negotiation (no, seriously, what a stroke of genius by Luepke) now concluded, it's time for Miller to set his eyes on Sept. 13, when the Cowboys travel to open their regular season against the New York Giants in primetime, but what is the team's plan for Miller?
Will his ramp-up process be completed by then, in time to take the field at MetLife Stadium??
"I don't have a plan [yet], but this is my 16th year in the National Football League," said the seven-time All-Pro and former Super Bowl MVP. "I like to think that I'm a coach's dream. I just try to make everybody's job easy — coaches and the players around me. Whatever I can do to help contribute to wins is why I'm here.
"Whether that's in the locker room or out there on the football field, I'm still a sack daddy, so I'll have my opportunity to go out there and rush the quarterback and contribute to wins."
What is already known is the fact Miller will not be a three-down outside linebacker. He still has plenty of tread left on his tires, evidenced by his nine sacks for the Buffalo Bills in 2025, but the two-time Super Bowl champion will be utilized situationally in Dallas, and that's something he confessed to during training camp in Oxnard.
From there, it's just a matter of making sure he's fine-tuned for the regular season after missing the majority of camp and participating in no preseason work.
"I've been all over, so they've done a really good job of ramping me up here, and that's the feeling that you want to have," Miller explained. "You want to have that feeling, like, 'Hey, I'm in shape. I can do a little bit more.' That means we're doing something right.
"You don't want it to be on the opposite side, where I'm gassed and thinking like, 'I need to take a couple plays off.' They've been doing a really good job of getting me acclimated, not that I need time to get acclimated, but it's always good to be safe; and they've done an incredible job of getting me ready to play."
The aura of Miller is undeniable, as is the smile that he hasn't stopped wearing since receiving news that he'd be joining the Cowboys, his hometown team. The DeSoto native, raised only minutes south of downtown Dallas, is still working through the surrealism of it all, and that is saying a lot for someone as accomplished in the NFL as Miller.
He truly feels like a kid in a candy store, a feeling that even he is having a difficult time trying to describe.
"[The media is] probably the 50th person to tell me that," said the eight-time Pro Bowler. "The smile has come back, you know? I've always loved playing football. I've been able to play for some amazing teams, with amazing quarterbacks and amazing coaches. But it's just something different about being here. ... Coming here to The Star and seeing this amazing facility, and going to the stadium, I am glad we had that preseason game because I was in awe.
"I've played on the other side, but I haven't been on this side wearing white jerseys and playing for the good guys. I needed that acclimation period to just kind of get all my [starstruck] out. It''s still times where I'm just in awe and starstruck, but everyday it kind of wears off a little bit and I settle into being a Dallas Cowboy. I'm sure a lot of kids wish that, and I am living a dream."
Miller so loves the Cowboys that he went on to admit his added goal of joining the front office in Dallas once his playing days are over, embraced by the Cowboys' executives as both a player and a man to the point where they've been "fanning those flames" in his mind.
The bottom line for Miller is a fairly simple one: he's home, and he never wants to leave.
