Shabrun's Blog

Following a sophomore season in which Broncos linebacker Von Miller became the team’s all-time single-season sack king, he was named to the 2013 Pro Bowl as a starter for the AFC squad.

Miller became the first player in team history to earn Pro Bowl honors in each of his first two NFL seasons. However, he was forced to miss the All-Star game due to an injury.

“I withdrew from the pro bowl because of my left shoulder,” Miller said during an appearance on behalf of Gatorade in New Orleans on Wednesday.

The injury, which Miller said would not require surgery, is something that he has dealt with ever since his first regular-season game as a Bronco.

He didn't miss any of the team's games in either of his first two seasons with the injury and would have been able to play had Denver advanced in the postseason.

“It was an injury I had lingering from my first professional game against the Raiders last year,” Miller said. “It’s an injury that I’ve had. It hasn’t been a problem – obviously I haven’t missed any games from it and I wouldn’t have missed any other games from it if it was a game that we needed. But, it was the Pro Bowl. I went and got another opinion on my shoulder so I can be ready to go for next year.”

Miller elected to pass on the Pro Bowl in favor of beginning the healing process so he can focus on the team’s 2013 campaign.

“It’s just rest,” Miller said of the treatment plan. “I’m going to rest it and rehab it and get big and strong. I think I’ll be alright. The Broncos’ training staff kept me in great health throughout my first two years.”

Andy Murray left Melbourne beaten but not bowed. He did not add a second grand slam title to his portfolio after his triumph in New York four months ago but, after analysing his defeat by Novak Djokovic in the Australian Open final, he knows what he needs to do to keep pace with the world No1, and to see off the challenge of Roger Federer, whom he beat in the semi-final, and Rafael Nadal, who returns from seven months out through injury in Chile this week.

Nevertheless Murray, still third in the world, reckons it will be harder than ever to get to No1 – a goal many good judges reckon is within his grasp in 2013, including Andre Agassi and Boris Becker.

"It's tough," Murray said. "If I had won here I would have two slams, a Wimbledon final and Olympic gold and still been well behind Novak."

"The argument a few years ago was with [Caroline] Wozniacki being No1 without a slam – but Novak [who won one slam last year, the Australian] still would have been significantly ahead of me even if I'd won. With his consistency just now, Rafa [Nadal] coming back, it's going to get tougher.

"I'll need to do well the next few months and not play badly – especially in the Masters series, I will need to do well there. My next goal is to try and play good tennis in Indian Wells and Miami.

"I've realised in the last year or so that when I set myself short-term goals I tend to play better tennis that way. Previously after every slam I would look way ahead to the next one and kind of take my eye off the ball with the other events so that's the immediate goal and also slightly think about the French Open. It's a tournament I'm capable of doing well in but for me it takes a lot of practice, a lot of hours on clay to get used to it. So that's a major goal for me but I've got to do well in the next few months.

"I obviously didn't do particularly well on the clay until the French last year. Indian Wells wasn't good so there's obviously potential to pick up points and improve my ranking. The way the rankings are, I think these should be the events that dictate the majority of the rankings but that's not always the way it works."

He has some fine-tuning to do and is slightly disappointed that he did not build on his first-set lead against Djokovic in Sunday's final.

"Maybe not so much with tactics," he said. "I will have a think about why I maybe didn't create as many chances on the return as I've done in the past, but the way I was striking the ball was fine. My tactics were right, I just didn't give myself enough opportunities on his serve. I have to try and improve my return."

As for Davis Cup commitments in 2013, Murray said, "I'm going to discuss it with [Great Britain's captain, Leon Smith] once I get back from here. I spoke to him in Miami, so we will talk about it again."

Last fall Zhu Jun, a Chinese Internet multimillionaire who convinced the Didier Drogba to join his Shanghai Shenhua football club, noted that Drogba had a two-and-a-half year contract. Despite rumors that Drogba was on his way out, the relationship between player and team “wasn’t a one-night stand.”

Zhu was right. The relationship between the star Ivorian striker and the mediocre Chinese team was actually a six-month fling. Now after half a season in a Chinese league better known for poor play and corruption—the “Allegedly Super League,” as the Guardian once called it last year—Drogba is leaving for the Turkish side Galatasaray. For most of Drogba’s short stay in China, talk swirled about his imminent departure as Zhu battled Shenhua’s other owners for control and wages for some of the team’s foreign players reportedly went unpaid. This week the long expected exit finally happened, after Galatasaray announced it had signed Drogba to an 18-month deal that will see him earn $13.5 million and a per-game fee of $20,000. After the Chinese season ended in November, Drogba had discussed playing on loan for Chelsea, the club he left last summer after leading them to a Champions League title. The move was blocked by FIFA, the sport’s international governing body. Shenhua are challenging Drogba’s move to Galatasaray, saying he still has two years on his contract.

(MORE: Didier Drogba Becomes China’s Biggest Soccer Import)

Drogba, 34, arrived in Shanghai as a conquering hero but was faced with a terribly unglamorous task: dragging Shenhua up from the basement of the Super League. He showed the same enthusiasm with which he attacked the world’s top defenses in Europe, energizing a team that was sitting in 13th place in a league of 16 teams when he arrived. Even Nicolas Anelka, a former Chelsea teammate who had come to Shenhua six months ahead of Drogba, showed moments of newfound inspiration. For most of his year in China, however, Anelka displayed the same indifference to competing that he had as a French international during the 2010 World Cup, when he led a team revolt against the coach and was sent home early. Last week Italian squad Juventus said it had signed Anelka on a loan for the remained of the season.

(BRIEF HISTORY: World Cup Meltdowns)

But while Anelka lived up to his nickname of “Le Sulk” while at Shenhua, Drogba showed he is one of the hardest working men in the sport. Last year he went from the European season almost directly into the Chinese season and will now join Galatasaray’s Turkish and Champions league campaigns after he finishes with the African Cup of Nations, where he is representing the Ivory Coast.

He hardly takes a breather on the pitch. I watched him play for Shenhua against Dalian Shide on a sweltering August night last year. He was aggressive and direct—plowing into opposing players, flailing for loose balls, crumpling at the slightest touch in hopes of drawing a foul. At one point midway through the second half, while double-marked in the opposition corner, he lofted a shot from an improbable angle that clanged off the crossbar. Aside from Drogba though, Shenhua showed little guile. They often got bogged down in midfield and had a hard time delivering the ball to their star striker. The game ended in a scoreless draw.

For the first two months after Drogba arrived Shenhua were undefeated in league play. They finished in ninth place, better than they were sitting midseason but far off the team’s goal of finishing in the top four and thus qualifying for the Asian Champions League. For Chinese football fans long used to failure and frustration, particularly when their men’s national team faces foreign competition, the significance of Drogba’s arrival was not just about what he meant for Shenhua or even the Super League, but what he meant for the sport in China as a whole. Zhu, the Shenhua chairman, told me last fall that he thought Drogba could help elevate the country’s level of play. “In China people don’t know what organized football is,” Zhu said. “They certainly won’t listen to me. So I brought in a star to show them. Every day they can see what a good player Drogba is and how he plays football. And then they will realize what football is.”

Such justification is a bit like saying that by buying a Ferrari you can help everyone get home faster by improving traffic flow. Still, the wages paid at Drogba by Shanghai—he was reportedly making $200,000 a week—plus the lucrative sponsorship deals from companies targeting the China market, means more big names will follow. And while rich teams bankrolled by tycoons spending their way to victory may sound wearily familiar to fans of European soccer — and, say, baseball in America — it’s a welcome change in China, where owners and officials have been known to buy success more directly, by paying off a referee or a few corrupt players. Chinese teams are still nowhere close to the standard of those from England, Germany, Spain or Italy. But if throwing ridiculous sums at big name players is any measure, they’re starting to even the score.