There were two big things wide receiver Denzel Mims needed to work on this summer.
However, the Jets’ second-round pick from Baylor missed most of camp with a hamstring injury, so he didn’t get much of an opportunity to hone his skills.
The two big areas he needed to work on were expanding his route tree and getting off the jam at the line.
So how will the lack of work in those two areas impact him once the regular season starts?
“We’ve got to expediate this process as quickly as possible,” said Jets coach Adam Gase. “I’ve been impressed with his route running so far. Now that’s on air now when we’re doing basically routes versus air. I’ve been impressed with the fact that it looks smoother, and I was thinking the same thing, ‘All right, we have to open up his route tree and see what we can do with him.’ It’s looked a lot better than anticipated.”
Getting off the line against press coverage will be a work in progress. Getting off a DB’s jam is a big challenge for a lot of rookie receivers.
“When we get him involved in practice, how’s it going to look versus press? What are your adjustments going to be? And we’re just going to have to work throughout the season and make sure that we can get him better,” Gase said.
Don’t expect Mims to have it all figured out early in the season.
“This is not going to be a situation where in game one, all right, we’re going to walk out there and expect him to have the full gamut down and be able to do all these different things,” Gase said. “We’re going to have to progress him the right way and hopefully as we get going throughout the season, he gets better and better and better.”
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