By now, we all know the basics of WR Scotty Miller’s NFL career. The newest Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver played four years with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before joining Steelers offensive coordinator Arthur Smith in Atlanta with the Falcons in 2023. He cracked the 1,000-yard career receiving mark with the Falcons last year while also catching two touchdowns on only 11 receptions.
But what do we really know about Miller? Who is he as a wide receiver beyond the basic stats? And who is he as a human being? Let’s pull back the curtain to learn more about the Steelers’ newest speedster.
Scotty Doesn’t Know (Anything But Explosive Plays)
Miller has only touched the ball on offense 93 times in his career. That’s not a ton of touches. But he makes up for that with explosive plays. Fifteen of his 93 career touches have covered at least 20 yards. To make it even crazier, he’s gained 559 yards on those 15 touches out of 1,166 career offensive yards. So for those of us who like percentages, Miller has gained 47.9 percent of his career offensive yards on 16.1 percent of his offensive touches. Holy explosive plays, Batman.
Track Speed
We can get a better understanding of Miller’s explosiveness on the football field by looking back at his time in high school. He was a track star at Barrington High School in Illinois. In fact, despite graduating nine years ago, Miller still holds his school’s record for the 100m and 200m dash. He is also part of the team that holds the record for the 4x100m relay. It’s no surprise that he’s been able to turn that track speed into those big plays above.
Just look at how Miller blows by the competition despite getting the baton in fourth place in this clip from high school.
Football Isn’t His Best Sport
To hear Miller talk, football isn’t even his best sport. Ping Pong is. While he was with the Falcons, he sat down with the Falcons In Focus Podcast to talk about all sorts of fun stories from his life. Evidently, Ping Pong was a big part of the locker room in Atlanta, so word got around that Miller was the biggest challenger to the team’s best player, Younghoe Koo. That caught the attention of the podcast hosts, so Miller had to give an account of how he honed his skills.
“I grew up with a Ping Pong table in my basement,” Miller said. “So really, I would go down there and play my dad all the time. And he would never let me win. No matter how young I was, he always beat up on me. But that always made me want to come back and get better. And we kept playing all night, all night. And then, finally, when I was maybe 10, 11, 12 years old, I beat him. And I haven’t looked back since.”
One Of The Best Falcons (Bowling Green Falcons, That Is)
If you look at the list of Bowling Green’s players with the most receiving yards in a career, it won’t take you long to find Miller. He has the third-most receiving yards with 2,867. He only had 215 catches, so he averaged 13.3 yards a catch while also pulling in 23 touchdowns for the Falcons. Not bad for a player who did not receive a single FBS scholarship offer until during the state playoffs his senior year.
Miller had 30 catches for 768 yards and 11 touchdowns in 12 games his senior year. That’s an average of 19.2 yards a catch. He also chipped in 17 carries for 201 yards and two touchdowns. Yet only FCS teams were interested in him until Bowling Green offered him a full scholarship during the playoffs.
Scotty Miller, The… Knight?
When we are young, we have some pretty great dreams. I know I had some fantastical dreams. According to Miller’s mom in an interview with 365barrington.com, Miller had two dreams as a kid.
“He wanted to either be an NFL football player or, when he was very young, he wanted to be a knight at Medieval Times,” Kristy Miller said. “So it’s a good thing football worked out!”
For those of us uninitiated folks, Medieval Times is a combination restaurant and medieval show. It features knights jousting and fighting with swords. There are currently 10 locations per the company’s website, and one of those locations is only 20 minutes from Miller’s high school.
So you know the interviewers for the Falcons In Focus Podcast had to ask him about it.
“When I was really little, I went and I loved it,” Miller said. “It was my favorite thing… If football didn’t work out, maybe I’ll ride on my horse with a joust stick.”
At his size, Miller might be a hard target to hit with a lance on horseback. He’s also pretty used to getting hit so the impact wouldn’t bother him too badly. Plus, he wears pads and a helmet daily anyways.
Who wouldn’t want to get to wear full armor and experience being a knight without the dangers of your life coming to an early end and medieval-level health care?
