DALLAS — Von Miller said the Los Angeles Rams should beat everybody on paper now that Aaron Donald has come out of retirement to play alongside Myles Garrett, and that he is hoping it does not work out that way so the Dallas Cowboys can benefit.
Miller made the comments on the Season 2 premiere of Free Range with Von Miller, the podcast he hosts with Audacy and posts to his YouTube channel. TJ Banks co-hosts the show.
Donald signed a one-year contract with Los Angeles on Sunday. Ian Rapoport of NFL Network and Adam Schefter of ESPN reported the deal is worth $20 million, and ESPN reported incentives that can push it to $30 million. Donald is 35 and had not played since 2023.
Donald retired in March 2024 after 10 seasons, all with the Rams, who took him 13th overall in 2014. He won Defensive Player of the Year three times, made first-team All-Pro eight times, and was selected to the Pro Bowl in each of his 10 seasons. He finished with 111 sacks and holds the franchise career record.
Los Angeles traded for Garrett in June. Garrett won his second Defensive Player of the Year award last season after setting an NFL single-season record with 23 sacks. He and Donald are the first pair of teammates in league history to have each won the award more than once.
Miller and Donald were teammates in 2021, after Denver traded Miller to Los Angeles that November. The Rams won Super Bowl LVI at the end of that season.
Von Miller On The Rams Roster With Aaron Donald Back
Miller said he knows what the Rams will have in the locker room and on the field.
“Contract is nice. Him being with Myles Garrett is nice,” Miller said. “You see him moving around, and he looks amazing out there. Still doesn’t look like he took two years off.”
“If you just look at it on paper, these guys should go to Super Bowl and beat everybody and just blow everybody out that they play,” Miller continued. “They got Puka. They got Davante Adams. They got a good running back, offensive line straight, and they got Matthew Stafford. They got the defensive player of the year from last year, and they got the offensive player of the year from last year, too.”
Los Angeles went 12-5 last season and led the NFL with 518 points, an average of 30.5 per game. The Rams beat Carolina and Chicago in the playoffs before losing the NFC Championship Game 31-27 at Seattle.
Matthew Stafford was the Associated Press MVP and a first-team All-Pro after leading the league with 4,707 passing yards and 46 touchdowns against 8 interceptions. Puka Nacua caught 129 passes for 1,715 yards and 10 touchdowns and was also a first-team All-Pro. Davante Adams caught 60 passes for 789 yards and 14 touchdowns in 14 games. Kyren Williams carried 259 times for 1,252 yards and 10 touchdowns.
Von Miller Is Rooting Against Los Angeles
Miller framed the answer as the only way he could look at it without being a hater.
“But I’m just hoping the football guys just come through like they always do and just stuff happens,” Miller explained. “I’m not jinxing anybody, but stuff happens where it looked like at the beginning of the season, it don’t end up being like that during the season.”
“I dealt with that with the Buffalo Bills. The Buffalo Bills are supposed to win the Super Bowl every year, and just for some reason it just did not happen,” Miller added. “So I hope that happens for the Los Angeles Rams, and I hope it helps us with the Dallas Cowboys. I just hope that it’s not for them this year and it’s for us. And I hope that statement that I just had, it does not age like milk.”
Miller signed with the Buffalo Bills in March 2022, weeks after the title run in Los Angeles. Buffalo did not reach a Super Bowl in his three seasons there.
Von Miller On Sean McVay’s Approach
Rams coach Sean McVay is in his 10th season. He was 30 when Los Angeles hired him in 2017, the youngest head coach in modern NFL history at the time of his hiring. Miller played for him in 2021.
Miller said the trade to Los Angeles moved him overnight from a losing cycle onto a Super Bowl contender.
“Coach McVay was amazing. I had a lot of great coaches. Coach McVay was great,” Miller said. “Sometimes coaches rely on the players to kind of run the meetings or run a team meeting, or they rely on a video here and there. Coach McVay had it down. He broke every huddle. He broke every meeting. He did every speech. He brought the energy. He brought the mindset. It was just him. He ran point, and he did a great job with that.”
“He didn’t need to lean on AD or Andrew Whitworth or Matt Stafford to break us down or give us a speech. He did it every time,” Miller noted. “And it was amazing to see that from that perspective. Because I had other coaches that were like, lean on this player, hey, break us down, or this and that. Coach McVay did it each and every time.”
Los Angeles opens the season Thursday, Sept. 10 against the San Francisco 49ers at Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia. Kickoff is set for 7:35 p.m. CT.
The Cowboys open Sept. 13 at the New York Giants. Kickoff at MetLife Stadium is set for 7:20 p.m. CT on NBC.
