Von Miller wears many hats: All-Pro line­backer, chick­en farmer, DJ, fash­ion­ista. And with every­thing he’s done and said since this sum­mer, you can add polit­i­cal activist to that list.

Miller, in speak­ing with Sen. Cory Book­er (D‑New Jer­sey) in an Insta­gram live chat this week, con­tin­ued to embrace that role ahead of Elec­tion Day. The Bron­cos star was unafraid to admit that 2020 is the first time he’s vot­ed, and he stressed the pro­gres­sion in his think­ing that final­ly led him to fill out a ballot. 

“We’ve seen (vot­ing pushed) before, in pre­vi­ous years, but this elec­tion and this year has been pushed more than any oth­er time,” Miller said. “I cer­tain­ly got the mes­sage — I went out and vot­ed ear­ly, and I’ve been push­ing all my friends and all my team­mates to do the same.”

What’s the best thing besides foot­ball that Miller could be doing right now, as he rehabs an ankle injury that’s kept him out all sea­son? Using his plat­form as an NFL super­star to remind peo­ple that, regard­less of the cur­rent divi­sive­ness in our coun­try, they have a chance to make their voice heard. Miller’s been doing that pub­licly since June, when he par­tic­i­pat­ed in, and spoke at, a team march in down­town Den­ver fol­low­ing the death of George Floyd, who was in the cus­tody of Min­neapo­lis police.

Now, Miller under­stands his and oth­er pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes’ grow­ing role in ensur­ing vot­er par­tic­i­pa­tion. The line­backer said the Bron­cos’ inten­sive play­er-only meet­ings fol­low­ing the Aug. 23 police shoot­ing of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisc. — an event that prompt­ed Den­ver and oth­er teams across the league to can­cel prac­tice lat­er that week — “was the wave that pushed me over the top to go out there and exer­cise my voice.”

“The time is now,” Miller said. “We’ve been fight­ing the same (social jus­tice) fight that Kareem Abdul-Jab­bar, Muhammed Ali, all these oth­er ath­letes fought. We just got to keep it going. (Pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes) can’t get tired with the process; we’ve got to keep push­ing, keep using our plat­form, keep speak­ing on what’s right, and we have to all do it together.”

Miller’s wide-rang­ing chat with Book­er touched on mar­i­jua­na legal­iza­tion, police bru­tal­i­ty and the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, among oth­er non-foot­ball top­ics. It was a refresh­ing and real con­ver­sa­tion in which the 31-year-old also described the excite­ment of voting. 

“I took a pic­ture of me hold­ing my bal­lot, took a pic­ture of me drop­ping it off,” Miller said.

While the line­backer remains opti­mistic (some might say exceed­ing­ly so) about his return to the field in 2020 fol­low­ing ankle surgery — “hope­ful­ly in about three weeks to a month, I should be ready to go” — he’s doing all the right things off the field. Tweet­ing in sup­port of his team­mates. Not stick­ing to sports.

Hope­ful­ly, this year is just the begin­ning of Von Miller, polit­i­cal activist. His voice is too potent and too loud, to not make a difference.