Von Miller Clarifies the Rumors Surrounding his Botched 2021 Broncos Halloween Party
Denver Broncos fans will recall one of Von Miller's Halloween parties getting out of hand back in 2018 when then backup quarterback Chad Kelly left the event, intoxicated, and was later arrested for entering a home uninvited in the wee hours of the morning, only to be chased off by a vacuum-hose-wielding resident. The Broncos released Kelly not long after.
Last fall, on the heels of the Broncos trading Miller to the Los Angeles Rams, there was a media dust-up when tight end Noah Fant broke ranks with his teammates to share behind-the-scenes details on the Pro Bowl pass rusher's botched 2021 Halloween party. Fant took to Denver radio and hinted at how Miller's party went south last year and perhaps created some discontentment among the teammates.
In a conversation with NFL reporter Mike Silver, Miller told his side of the story on last year's Halloween bash.
“When I got traded, I think Noah Fant—like he kind of spoke out on it on the radio and stuff. So, this is my space—like giving me the floor,” Miller told Silver on the OpenMike Podcast. “I’m using your podcast for me to say my piece on the Halloween part. It was a Halloween party that I wanted to have for the guys, we ended up losing—I wanted to back out. They wanted to have the party still. We had the party, nobody wanted to pay—nobody came. So, it was just a tough situation that they put me in. I was upset about it and I got all the stuff off my chest, and we kept moving.”
Fant said this last fall in the wake of the rumors surrounding the botched Halloween party.
“I guess I’ll clarify. It was a situation where we were planning in having this Halloween party and that was the thing,” Fant explained via radio station 104.3 The Fan. “Then, we dropped a couple of games and Von had contacted everybody in the group chat saying, ‘hey, like I’m thinking about canceling the party. We want to win games. We’ve got to focus on winning games. That’s the biggest thing is being improvement driven. Focus on winning and things like that.' So he did try to cancel it. Guys still wanted to have it. And then it kind of went south from there. I’m not going to go into details.”
Miller made it sound like things did "go south" indeed, leading to some heated arguments among him and the teammates in question.
Bottom line, his Broncos teammates were used to Miller footing the entire bill for these parties, but last year, some of the guys wanted to contribute. Miller claims he moved forward with the planning with the understanding that his teammates would help pay for it.
When Miller had second thoughts, his teammates, according to him, pressed the issue, so he missed the opportunity to cancel the party without financial expense. Then many of the same guys who said they'd pay, and pounded the table to keep the party scheduled, didn't show up, and Miller wanted to be reimbursed.
Having the party, especially when the Broncos were losing, was an idea that wasn't sitting comfortably with Miller during the planning stages of his Halloween bash. In Miller's eyes, his bad feelings over the team's losing slide led him to want to scrap the entire idea — if it wasn’t for his teammates pressuring him to go ahead regardless while he footed the bill up front, under the expectation that the guys attending would reimburse him their respective share.
Water under the bridge.
Miller has always remained a Bronco at heart and had even entertained a Mile High reunion when he hit free agency. That interest was not reciprocated by Denver, apparently, as the team opted to sign Dallas Cowboys edge rusher Randy Gregory as his long-term replacement instead.
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