Von Miller has some excellent news about his contract talks with the Broncos

The linebacker says the two sides have made 'real progress' on a new deal

The Denver Broncos are in the process of wrapping up the offseason and turning their attention towards the 2016 season. But there's a few loose ends to tie up.

For one, the trip to see Barack Obama at the White House as a celebration for their Super Bowl 50 victory. While there, one of the other loose ends, superstar pass rusher Von Miller, addressed his contract and sounded increasingly "optimistic" because, Miller said, the team and player made "real progress."

"We've made real progress over the last couple of days. I'm very optimistic about the whole thing," Miller said. "Yeah, I remain optimistic about everything."

The Broncos hit Miller with the franchise tag after he parlayed an 11-sack regular season into an all-time postseason performance that featured 6.5 sacks, including 2.5 each against the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game and the Panthers in the Super Bowl.

Miller is due $14.129 million in the coming season on a one-year, guaranteed deal.

John Elway's shown a willingness to play hardball in certain contractual situations, but there's a zero-sum chance he's going to let Miller walk out the door.

The issue here for Denver and Von is trying to make things work between now and July 15 (the deadline to work out a contract with players who were franchise tagged) on such a huge contract.

The Chiefs gave Justin Houston a $101 million contract with $32.5 million guaranteed last July. Houston's a great player, but Miller is a far more dynamic defensive weapon in terms of his ability to drop into coverage and stop the run.

It's probably not fair to call Houston's contract a "starting point," but that's certainly the deal both sides are targeting.

The real question is whether Miller can approach the deal the Dolphins gave Ndamukong Suh ($114 million with $59 million guaranteed). Franchise tagging Miller again next year would cost a minimum $16.955 million. So we're talking well north of $30 million guaranteed between the next two seasons. Hitting Suh's numbers when Suh was in "true" free agency would be difficult, but it's possible Miller could eclipse the deal.

Possibly more realistic: Miller beating Suh's guaranteed money and getting $60 million guaranteed (with most of it paid out early in the deal) on a contract that pays him somewhere in between Houston and Suh money for the total length of the deal.

Elway is smart enough to know how much Miller means to this team. And Miller pulled a Joe Flacco by playing his best at the ideal time. It's going to be expensive, but it wouldn't be shocking if they worked something out.