Von Miller wants to be back, but all signs point to the end with the Bills
Is it fair to put the onus on Von Miller to be the difference maker? Maybe not entirely. But the Buffalo Bills are paying him to fill that role, a fact that points to the end of his tenure with the team.
Von Miller’s third season with the Buffalo Bills ended with a whimper.
The Buffalo Bills’ defense underperformed in a 32-29 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. Miller was not the difference maker. He was not the closer. He did not help the Bills get over the top on the Chiefs’ dynasty.
Is it fair to put the onus on Miller to be the difference maker? Maybe not entirely. But the Bills are paying him to fill that role, a fact that points to the end of his tenure in Buffalo.
Miller, who turns 36 in March, said Monday he wants to be back with the Bills in 2025.
“We definitely not rebuilding,” Miller said. “We still going to run the AFC East. We still got that killer mentality here in the locker room. We just didn’t win the big one. We still got the same team. We still got a great quarterback, going to have a great defense, great coaches. We just got to get back to the table and do it all over again. And however long my key card works in this building, I’m going to keep coming here and keep coming in to try to make that happen.
“I want to be here. I don’t want to speak for them, but I think they want me here, too. Like I said before, if you want to make God laugh, start making plans. But I plan on being in Buffalo, being here for sure.”
Nevertheless, it is a long shot for Miller to return, given the economics of the salary cap. It will be a surprise if the Kansas City loss was not his last game in a Buffalo uniform.
When Miller signed with the Bills in 2022, his contract was viewed as a three-year deal. Built in, from Day One, was an easy out at the end of the 2024 campaign.
The Bills are facing a tight salary cap. Miller’s cap hit for 2025 is $23.8 million, second only to Josh Allen. If the Bills release Miller and designate him as a post-June 1 cut, he would count only $6.3 million this year and $9 million in 2026. That is a savings of $17.44 million for 2025.
Miller could agree to a pay cut, as he did this past season, when he took a cut of $8.3 million. (He wound up earning $4 million of that back by hitting incentives.)
“It’s always some stuff that you can work out, something that you can do,” Miller said of his contract.
Even with another pay cut in 2025, however, it’s hard to see the Bills resisting the $17.44 million in savings.
Von Miller pressures Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes in the second quarter of the AFC championship game on Sunday. Harry Scull Jr., Buffalo News
Another factor working against Miller: Even in the biggest game of the season, he was merely a bit player.
The defensive end snaps against the Chiefs looked like this: Greg Rousseau 51, A.J. Epenesa 46, Dawuane Smoot 30 and Miller 16. And of those 16, only 10 were pass-rush snaps.
Granted, the Bills’ defense did not get the Chiefs into a lot of third-and-long situations. But that is all the playing time the coaches thought Miller deserved.
Miller finished the season with six sacks, tied with Epenesa for second most on the team.
He definitely showed more burst than last season, when he was still barely a year removed from major knee surgery. Miller said he was encouraged by his play and enters this offseason with a vastly different perspective from a year ago.
“Man, to be honest with you, last season I really didn’t know,” Miller said. “That could’ve easily been my last year. I was struggling on the football field, struggling off the football field. I was really just trying to find myself. And coming into training camp, I still wasn’t sure that I could play football. And I think I proved that to myself. I think I’ve done enough to really build that confidence up in myself that I can come back for Year 15. Year 16? That’s way down the road. But I’ve got Year 15 on the books for sure.”
Miller ranked third on the team in pressures with 32, behind Rousseau’s 63 and Ed Oliver’s 39, according to Pro Football Focus. In three postseason games, Miller had another eight, including two against the Chiefs. Miller and Oliver got in the backfield and hurried Patrick Mahomes on the third-and-17 play before the Chiefs’ final field goal.
Miller is an optimist. He also is philosophical about how hard it is to win a title in the NFL.
“I see these AFC champion banners up there, and those were the first banners that I saw when I came here to Buffalo,” he said, referring to the signage in the team fieldhouse. “We wanted to change that. We wanted to put a Super Bowl banner up there. And that’s still the mindset. Sometimes, in life, it just don’t come to you right away. But God has an interesting way of going about things.
“I love being a Buffalo Bill, I love this coaching staff. Coach (Sean) McDermott, one of my favorite coaches ever. Josh Allen, I can’t say enough about Josh. I know Josh off the field, on the field, if it’s meant for somebody to have success, or if karma is real, good karma that you put out comes back to you. That’s Josh. He’s a great dude, and it’s going to happen for him. It just didn’t happen for us right now.”
Bills sign four
On Tuesday, the Bills signed wide receivers Tyrell Shavers and Jalen Virgil to reserve/future contracts. Both receivers spent this past season on the Bills practice squad as well.Shavers, 25, delighted fans in Week 17 with a 69-yard touchdown reception in the 40-14 win over the New York Jets. He also was elevated for games at Houston and at Indianapolis this season.
Virgil, 26, previously spent time with the Denver Broncos before joining the Bills practice squad last August. He was promoted to the active roster in November, and he played for the Bills from Week 8 against Seattle through Week 15 against the Patriots.
He rejoined the Bills practice squad in December, but Virgil was elevated from the practice squad for Buffalo’s first two games of the playoffs. Still, he was then inactive for both. In seven games this season, Virgil played 37 snaps on offense and 83 snaps on special teams.
On Wednesday, the Bills signed tight end Zach Davidson to a reserve/future contract and quarterback Shane Buechele to a one-year deal. Davidson appeared in three games. Buechele spent the year on injured reserve.
