Inside the five-word phrase that inspired the Broncos' best performance of the season

GLENDALE, Ariz. — It must have come to Von in the night.

“He told me in the morning he was gonna say it,” Chris Harris Jr. told BSN Denver with a laugh. “I didn’t believe him.”

A few hours later, the Super Bowl 50 MVP continued his crowdsourcing campaign.

“It was actually funny because he came to us before and he was like, ‘Hey, I’m thinking about telling the media that we’re just gonna kick their ass,'” Bradley Chubb explained.

“Me and Shaq [Barrett] were in the meeting room, and I was like, ‘Shit, go ahead! Yeah, let’s do it. I like that idea… He was like, ‘Alright, if I say this, y’all gotta have my back.”

Shortly thereafter, Miller took the podium in front of about 20 members of the Denver media and during his answer to the very first question asked to him, he dropped the bomb.

“We’re gonna beat their ass,” he said. “Make sure you put that up there. We’re gonna beat their ass.”

As he walked back into the locker room following a media session that went about six minutes shorter than usual, he broke the news to the rest of his teammates that weren’t a part of his focus group.

“I just said we’re gonna beat their ass,” Miller announced to the locker room, according to Shelby Harris.

“Everyone was just like, ‘Alright, yeah, we will,” Harris told BSN Denver as if it didn’t phase anyone. “We all believed that anyway.”

On Thursday Night Football, Miller and his teammates beat Arizona’s ass to a tune that nobody outside of that locker room could have predicted. 45-10 on the scoreboard.

Miller’s defense produced six sacks, two of which came from No. 58, three forced fumbles, two of which came from No. 58, three interceptions and two defensive touchdowns.

Did Miller’s comments play a part in the drubbing?

“Hell yeah!” Shelby Harris exclaimed. “You can’t just say that stuff and then not go beat they ass. You can’t say you’re gonna beat they ass and then go get your asses beat. It put extra fire on us; you could feel it all of the rest of the week during our preparation. Everyone was zoned in, locked in.”

What made it more meaningful is that Von Miller doesn’t talk trash. Not when he’s pummeling Tom Brady, not when he damn near single-handedly won the Super Bowl, not when the Broncos were making a habit of blowing teams out. He’s just not a talker. He sacks the quarterback and tells jokes, as he’ll proudly tell you.

Heck, he even clarified after the game that his comments weren’t directed at the Cardinals, “It was for my teammates,” he said.

“It’s not even like me,” he added. “But I thought it was the best thing to do to get my teammates going.”

And for his teammates, hearing the normally-laid-back superstar bring the heat like that on the podium instilled a certain confidence.

“For him to go say that, that means he believed in us,” Harris said.

“We needed that, man,” Garrett Bolles admitted. “That little spark that he set right there, it may seem small to the outside world, but to us, that was something big.”

Five simple words. It was just five simple words, but those five simple words turned a reeling team that had lost four in a row into a team on a mission.