When compared to the rest of the New York Jets roster in 2021, Denzel Mims’ season was easily the most disappointing. Mims was frequently benched in favor of fresher players, and when he did play, he rarely contributed anything of significance. The second-round pick, who had great promise, only caught eight passes for 133 yards and no touchdowns in 11 games (12.1 yards per game).
After an intriguing debut season, the 59th overall pick in the 2020 draft has taken a shocking tumble. In his first season as a pro, Mims caught 23 passes for 357 yards (39.7 yards per game). Mims was averaging a decent 42.8 yards per game during his first eight outings until getting injured in his final game of 2020.
Those stats indicated that Mims had the potential to become a reliable starter. Instead, by 2021, he was regarded as one of the league’s worst wide receivers. Among the 271 NFL players with at least 20 targets, his catch percentage of 34.8% (8 receptions on 23 targets) was third-worst.
Is Denzel Mims any good?
Gaining the confidence of a new coaching staff is difficult when you have trouble with the fundamentals of the sport. In the year 2021, this was a major issue for Mims. The Jets offense suffered as a result of his penchant for picking up unnecessary penalties, and his lack of faith from the coaching staff was likely a major factor.
Mims was only active for 279 offensive snaps, but he tied for third among wide receivers in penalties with five. He had the worst penalty rate among starters at wide receiver, with one for every 55.8 snaps. Trent Sherfield of San Francisco was the second-worst player in this statistic, committing a penalty once every 88.7 snaps.
Although Mims only appeared in 279 of the 3,009 offensive snaps (9.3%), he was responsible for 5 of the unit’s 10 penalties. This means that Mims had the same number of penalties as all of the Jets’ wide receivers put together.