Back at it again with the film breakdowns. Not sure if that’s one word but it doesn’t matter; we’re here for football not grammar. If you want to learn about grammar, put on some lipstick and open up a thesaurus, nerds. I don’t know why you clicked on this in the first place honestly.
We’re here to talk about Denzel Mims, the New York Jets 2nd round pick in the 2020 NFL draft. Mims has been a star at Baylor for basically his entire career, putting up huge numbers in 2017, 2018, and 2019. He played most of 2018 with an injury and still had 55 receptions for 800 yards and 8 touchdowns.
Oh yeah, and he’s 6’3″ and ran a 4.38 40-yard dash, confirming he might just be from a different planet, like Uranus. The dude is a fucking specimen, no ifs, ands, or butts about it (you’re welcome for the butt joke).
Obviously if you were paying attention to the draft as it was happening, you heard people talking about why Denzel Mims, who many scouts and analysts gave a 1st round grade, dropped so far in the draft. I guess the consensus was that he had an issue with route running mechanics as well as some drops early in his career that skewed his overall numbers, so in the DEEP AF 2020 rookie WR class he went into draft season sitting somewhere in the mid to late 2nd-round.
Then he showed up at every workout leading up to the draft and put on route running clinics while shredding turf on his way to an elite sub-4.4 40-yard dash. At that point, buzz started to grow and there was chatter amongst the McShays and Kipers of the world that he should go in the first round, but I guess it was nothing but just that, buzz and chatter?
Whether or not he was worthy of a 1st round selection, Joe Douglas and the Jets’ front office had their collective finger on the pulse of the league well enough to know they didn’t have to trade up for him or even reach at 48.
The rest is history. 48 became 59 and multiple later picks via some trade brilliance, and we still got the potential steal of the draft in Denzel Mims.
Sure, he has his flaws, but not many.
Come now, let me show you…
Baylor vs. Oklahoma (November 16th, 2019)
Before I go any further into the Baylor v. Oklahoma regular season matchup, it’s worth mentioning that Denzel Mims was held to 0 receptions later in the year by Oklahoma during the Big 12 Championship. It’s a jarring sentence to read, but after watching his film from the game, it’s not difficult to look past it.
If you don’t wanna watch because you’re here for the GIFs, let me sum it up for you: Baylor used 3 QBs in the game, they all sucked, and the one catch Mims did have was called back for a penalty. He still blocked well too.
That’s enough about that. Let’s see some mother fucking GIFs.
The Good Stuff (plus he’s already wearing green so it’s easy to fantasize)
Smell ya later! That’s what I’d call that play if I was coaching Baylor’s offense.
If we wanna get technical, Mims is 1 on 1 with the CB with no help over the top. The CB presses but doesn’t jam Mims, which was the only mistake he needed to make. One hesitation step and he’s gone. You can really see the speed and potential for big plays here.
Remind you of anyone?
Peep the instincts on this next play. The route isn’t anything crazy, but watch his feel for the closing defender as he turns out of this catch.
The separation his quick stop creates gives him enough room to make an uncontested catch and turn his head early, shuffling past the first tackler into an extra 11 yards after the catch. It’s not the most memorable highlight, it’s just that this dude is a gamer and everyone should know it.
Next up, another tuddy.
Fights through the hard press coverage, gets outside leverage, then makes a great catch away from his body at the pylon. Exactly what you want to see from a potential red zone target for Sam “medium dick” Darnold.
Play #4 is another promising one, albeit simple. Just showcasing some of the kid’s versatility here.
So now we’re really seeing the difference in skillsets between Mims and Robby Anderson, the guy he was drafted to “replace”. We’ve already seen what Mims can do down the field, but look at this catch across the middle while diving into contact. Hands like that on a body like his are hard enough to come by; finding someone who loves and welcomes contact as much as Denzel Mims on top of that is even crazier.
More on that to come, like right now.
Denzel Mims Could Probably Play Tight End If He Got Really Fat
Those are 2 blocks from the Oklahoma game (you’re welcome for telling you that). I could’ve included more but I know I’m really the only one who likes to watch WRs block. Real quick though, look at how he finishes on the first play, and look at the effort in the second.
Denzel Mims is a football player. His effort as a blocker alone puts him a step ahead of most coming into the league, and his size makes it easy to believe he’s only gonna get better, especially working with Jets’ offensive assistant Hines Ward, the former Pittsburgh Steeler WR who’d be a member of the NFL Hall of Fame if blocking had an easily measured statistic and people truly cared about how well a WR blocks.
There will be more blocking clips in the Texas game breakdown too, so hold your breath.
Route Running Highlights
As I mentioned earlier, one of the knocks against Mims as a prospect was the lack of polish (shoutout Poland) demonstrated in his route running, especially early in his career. That’s one of the tough parts about having 3 years worth of major production on film for teams to scout; it’s easy to find flaws on a guy, even if they improve on them throughout their career like Denzel Mims did.
In a lot of the film I watched from early in his Baylor career, Mims was able to produce by being bigger, faster, and more athletic than the guys guarding him, while his stops and breaks within routes left a lot to be desired.
Lots of lazy double moves and breaks on routes he wasn’t anticipating a target. Slow turns on quick routes, stuff like that. Sure, he was productive, but guys get paid to scout and find flaws.
The important thing is he improved.
Let’s start with a double move (is it really a true double move? Not really but it’s the best we’ve got so just deal with it).
Something I learned in my own studies is that when you evaluate route running, specifically when a guy gets into his break, it’s all in the angle of the lower body at the break point. On this one, Mims gets into his break (the point where his route differentiates into whatever route he’s running) at about the 43 yard line.
In a perfect word, it should look like Mims is sitting in an invisible chair mid-break.
Is it perfect? I don’t think so, but it’s pretty damn close. Mind you, the man is 6’3″ folks. To steal some more terminology I picked up, it might be closer to a stool than a chair, and even that is more than enough to get #11 on the Sooners to bite upfield.
The combination of the safety over the top, a shitty throw by the QB, and a solid recovery by #11 lead to an incompletion, but a better throw probably allows Mims to make the play here. Like I said, the dude is a gamer in every sense of the word (except the Big 12 Championship I guess).
Here’s some more routes!
Note the footwork on this one with Mims atop your screen. He doesn’t get targeted here, but the route is gorgeous.
Again, that’s just something that Robby Anderson never ever had in his toolkit, and likely never will.
3rd down and Baylor needs 3 yards, Mims runs his man 3 yards past the marker before stopping on a time, creating 3 yards of separation while ALSO giving himself and the QB space to work back to the ball and still convert, should the ball have gone his way. You just absolutely LOVE to see it.
Here he is opposite some man to man coverage. He gets jammed a bit on this one so we can ignore how high he stays; the fact is he does everything right during and after that.
Look at how he uses his hands to fight without stopping his fight, gets inside, then disappears. It looks like the safety comes up the field hard first too, so I’m pretty sure Denzel Mims was REALLY fucking open on this one.
Take my word for it, his technique here is even more impressive when you compare it to what he looked like 2 years ago.
Finally…we got slant feet. Everybody loves some fucking slant feet.
To play devil’s advocate on this one, Mims stays way too high on his break, though it’s still more than enough. Look closely at how quick is feet move, throwing the CB off balance and creating the window Mims needs to get inside leverage. He doesn’t even get looked at by the QB, but these are the types of routes he’s gonna be expected to execute from day 1 in the NFL.
And guess what? He absolutely can.
Okay so when I started writing this I was gonna include both games I broke down but now I’m here and that seems like an aggressive move that no one in their right mind would attempt to pull off and expect it to be read. So instead I’m gonna do a second Mims breakdown with all the Texas clips and make this all a bit easier for everyone to digest.
Before I do that, let me just add this. If I only watched the one game I just broke down above, I’d still be very excited about Denzel Mims as a prospect. He’s big, he’s fast, he’s aggressive, and he loves to play FOOTBALL, not just wide receiver.
Beyond all that, he has major potential to grow into a true #1 for the Jets. Those are just facts, folks.
Lepota and The Hound 