Von Miller credits his blazing start to 'Dancing With the Stars'

All right, let’s admit that when Denver Broncos outside linebacker Von Miller was showing up on your television more often than Flo from Progressive, we all wondered if his play would suffer.

The opposite happened, he said.

Miller, after his Super Bowl MVP performance raised his profile, went on “Dancing With the Stars” in the offseason. So far this season he’s leading the NFL with four sacks. Broncos defensive coordinator Wade Phillips is already stumping for him as an MVP candidate. And Miller credits training to do the fox trot for his fantastic start.

He told Jeff Legwold of ESPN.com that it was just the dedication to becoming a good dancer for the show that has carried over to his football life.

“I’ve never put six hours into one thing every single day, not even football,” Miller said. “We practice for two hours. [Dancing] made me consistent. It made me have to come to work every single day and be consistent and work on something that I wasn’t really good at.

“I think having to struggle with that is definitely helping me here. I already had agility and flexibility, but the consistent part, coming into work and doing something that I’m not good at and have [dance partner] Witney [Carson] really depend on me to get my job done, that’s the correlation that it has on the football field.”

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It makes sense. Not that Miller hasn’t worked very hard to be one of the NFL’s most dominant players, but as he told ESPN, football has always come relatively easy to him. Getting out of his comfort zone and having to learn to dance so he didn’t embarrass himself during a celebrity dancing show taught him something new.

Whatever the reason for Miller’s big start to this season, the Broncos will take it. Miller has been a dominant player since he entered the league, took his game to a new level in the playoffs last season and seems even better this year.

Miller was voted off “Dancing With the Stars” when he was one of eight competitors remaining, not coming close to winning the competition. But it looks like he ended up better off for the experience.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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