On Tuesday, Aqib Talib told media about Von Miller inviting teammates over to his house on a weekly basis. Later in the week, one Broncos player told me, “Man, even [Brandon] McManus is boys with Von, that’s how close this team is.”
“They used me as the example?!” McManus said with a laugh.
The kicker hanging out with the star of the show? They really do all get along.
“There’s a lot of characters on this team, a lot of really funny guys to hang out with,” the second-year field goal man told BSN Denver. “In college you have your roommates, you hang out with them all of the time. You get to the NFL and everybody has families and stuff like that, but this team has an avenue of a lot of friends that continue to want to hang out off of the field. I think that leads to a lot of our success.”
Like Talib told us, “Club 58,” Von Miller‘s basement is the place to be.
“Von’s basement is beautiful, it’s got pop-a-shot, you can play basketball, pool, card games, video games,” McManus told. “All of the guys go over there to hang out and compete. These guys are so competitive, we try to be the best on the football field but they don’t want to lose in pop-a-shot either.”
While special teamers don’t always get the respect they deserve, that’s not the case on this Broncos team.
“I think they know, at this level, that you have to be the best to get here,” the kicker said. “They like us and respect us special teamers just as much. I’ve been hanging out with Owen [Daniels] this whole trip, he doesn’t see me as a kicker, just a friend of his.”
So does this team have the best chemistry of any he’s been on?
“That I’ve been on, yeah,” he said without hesitation. “It’s really similar to a college feel when you go all four years with the same guys and have a family atmosphere.”
While it may seem like a novel idea in most of the NFL for the whole team to get along like this, another special teams guy and another staple at Club 58, long-snapper Aaron Brewer made it seem simple
“Everybody gets along on this team,” he said. “We’re a team.”
That team will take the field on Sunday afternoon hoping to turn the bond of this season into a bond that will last a lifetime. . . and it comes with some pretty cool friendship rings.
