Von Miller named Pro Bowl defensive MVP after win- sealing strip-sack By Nicki Jhabvala Denver Post Jan. 29, 2018 It’s like 2016 all over again. Minus the ring. Broncos linebacker Von Miller, a Pro Bowler for the sixth time in his career, was named the game’s defensive MVP on Sunday after posting a strip sack and fumble recovery to seal the AFC’s come-from- behind victory in Orlando, Fla. He is the first Bronco in history to win the award. The AFC trailed by 17 points at halftime but outscored the NFC 21-3 in the second half and won 24-23. Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith found Titans tight end Delanie Walker, the game’s offensive MVP, for a 4- yard touchdown pass early in the third quarter. LeSean McCoy followed with a 2-yard touchdown run about six minutes later. Then Derek Carr connected with Walker for the winning 18-yard touchdown with about 1:30 remaining. The NFC had the ball for a first down at its 36-yard line as the clock wound down, but Miller strip sacked quarterback Jared Goff, then recovered the ball to ensure the AFC victory. To go with his strip sack and recovery, Miller had three two tackles, a pass-breakup and a pair of quarterback hits. Miller’s win-sealing play came two years after his pair of strip sacks of Panthers quarterback Cam Newton in Super Bowl 50 that landed Miller the MVP award then too. Though the stakes were higher and the prize larger two years ago, the feeling Sunday was similar. And the accolades, collectively, put him in rare company as one of only four players — with Peyton Manning, Jerry Rice and Phil Simms — to win MVP awards of both a Super Bowl and Pro Bowl. Said Miller after his latest feat: “MVP, baby, do MVP things!” Pro Bowl may be Talib's last appearance as Bronco By Mike Klis 9NEWS Jan. 29, 2018 Bronco fans may see Aqib Talib represent their team for the last time Sunday when he plays for the AFC in the Pro Bowl Game. Talib has been a great Bronco, making the Pro Bowl each of the four seasons he was in Denver. The only other player to make four Pro Bowls in four seasons with the Broncos was John Lynch, who was inducted into the team’s Ring of Fame and is a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame class of 2018. Talib was also a key player on the Broncos' Super 50 team and he was named first-team All Pro in 2016. He's had six, pick sixes during his four seasons in Denver. Although Talib has two years left on the six-year, $57 million contract he signed with the Broncos in March 2014, Denver is expected to place him on the trading block because of financial considerations. The Broncos have two other younger cornerbacks in Chris Harris Jr. ($8.5 million) and Bradley Roby ($8.526 million) scheduled to make a combined $17.026 million in 2018. Talib, who will turn 32 on February 13, is scheduled to make $11 million in 2018 and $8 million in 2019. Even with the salary cap going up from $167 million to between $176 million and $180 million for the 2018 season, it’s difficult for a team to allocate $28 million to three cornerbacks. Talib and pass-rushing linebacker Von Miller are the only Broncos who will play in the Pro Bowl with kickoff at 1 p.m. in Orlando. CU, Colorado State athletics attempting to tackle suicide prevention, mental health proactively By Kyle Fredrickson Denver Post Jan. 29, 2018 The 300-pound Colorado State lineman was a physically dominant force. But it was his mind that struggled, and he didn’t want it to show. The summer before his junior year, a best friend back home died in a motorcycle crash and another suffered brain injury in a separate car crash. Then he faced relationship trouble. It all seemed to happen at once. The player hardly spoke of his pain that entire season and funneled his energy toward football. Yet outside the game, he often withdrew from his teammates. Then something changed. “Finally,” he said, “I opened up about everything.” The former Ram is in a better place today, but when mental-health issues go unchecked for extended lengths of time, the results can sometimes be devastating. And his request to remain anonymous speaks to the stigma of depression in athletics, even years after he walked away from the sport. In 2015, suicide ranked as the second-leading cause of death for Coloradoans between ages 15 and 44 — with 1,093 total deaths across all groups, according to the Center for Disease Control’s most recent available data. The state’s suicide rate per 100,000 people was 19.46; far above the national average (13.26). It’s a public health crisis often forced into the national conscience through athletics. Like Monday, when former Minnesota Duluth hockey captain Andrew Carroll, 32, took his life by jumping from an elevated roadway near Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Or on Jan. 16 in Pullman, Wash., when teammates of Washington State quarterback Tyler Hilinski found him in his apartment with a self- inflicted gunshot wound. Hilinski was 21. Much of the public outcry since has reflected the words of Hilinisky’s former teammate, quarterback Luke Falk, who addressed suicide with reporters at Senior Bowl practice last week: “It should be talked about,” Falk told Yahoo.com, “and we should do something about it.” The University of Colorado and CSU believe they are. Since 2000, CU football has endured the loss of three former players to suicide: Drew Wahlroos (2017), Rashaan Salaam (2016) and Gabe Odenberg (2004). A CSU spokesman was not aware of any former Ram athletes who have committed suicide, but both schools take a similar approach in promoting a student- athlete’s mental health through the embedding of licensed mental-health professionals. Chris Bader is in his sixth year as the counseling and sport psychologist at CU, and earlier this month, the athletic department added Erin Rubenking, who is also a licensed professional counselor. At CSU, Jimmy Stewart is in his fourth-year as senior coordinator for counseling services for student-athletes. Through the orientation periods for sports at each school, first-year players are introduced to their respective counselor and are given their cellphone contact. Those mental health pros then become regulars at team practices, the weight room, study hall, competition and everywhere in between. Getting help is a conversation away. Those discussions are always confidential. “In college, a lot of these athletes don’t want to go to the counseling center,” Stewart said, “because everybody is going to know them.” Bader and Stewart estimate they each visit with 20-to-25 student athletes per week for varying degrees of crisis. CU reports about a 50-50 split between male and female athletes who seek counseling. CSU said slightly more women attend sessions than men. The demographics typically break into three groups — the athlete who wants to meet; the athlete who is recommended by a coach/trainer/teammate; or the athlete who’s required through disciplinary action. Through multiple points of access and a university-wide collaborative effort, CSU and CU aim to erase the idea that seeking mental health is an admission of weakness. “What I have seen in my time in the field is the stigma is lessening,” said Bader, adding that about 75 percent of CU’s student-athlete population meets with him annually. “They’re sort of familiar with what we’re doing and it’s not this weird ‘voodoo magic’ that it might have been a few years ago.” Madison Porter, a former CSU women’s tennis player who visited Stewart about once a week almost a year following a difficult breakup, said: “On and off the court, it was a tremendous help. I was able to breathe. I could really just grow as a person.” CSU has also taken a digital approach to providing mental-health resources with the development of its “YOU@CSU” program available to all students through school email. Developed by Joe Conrad, a 1987 CSU graduate, it provides online tools and university resources for mental health skill building. “It doesn’t solve the need for one to want counseling, but a lot of times when students are struggling, it might be the middle of the night,” said Anne Hudgens, the executive director of CSU Health Network. Increased dialogue surrounding suicide prevention within the state’s biggest athletic departments is well received by former CU linebacker and assistant coach Brian Cabral. He said those discussion never took place during his playing days in the 1970s, and not nearly enough through his more than two decades (1989-2012) as an assistant coach at CU. Cabral recruited Salaam and Wahlroos to Boulder, and when both took their own lives within a span of nine months, it left Cabral searching for answers. “They were fun-loving guys,” he said, “and it’s hard to understand how that happens.” So Cabral and the nonprofit Buffs4Life Foundation made a pact as part of a new initiative with the “Never Again” campaign. Launched earlier this month, it provides prominent former CU athletes across the nation with contacts to professional resources ranging from family/marriage counseling, substance- abuse programs, medical health specialists, to career building. That network can then provide immediate assistance to any former athlete they discover in trouble.