If you were building a wide receiver from scratch, he would probably look a lot like Denzel Mims. 6-foot-3 and 216 pounds. Add in his physical tools of 4.38 speed, a vertical of 38.5 inches, and a 6.66 3-cone drill. Denzel Mims has the size, weight, and speed to be a great receiver. A created player in Madden at the receiver would have this skillset. However, something seems to be missing with Denzel Mims.
There has been a lot of buzz that Mims could go in the first round. I can’t get behind that narrative. One of the things I can’t get past was the Sugar Bowl game against Georgia. I couldn’t find the main highlights so I threw the entire game below. Coronavirus is going on so maybe you want to watch it.
Mims got exposed in this game. It’s hard to get it out of my mind how Eric Stokes basically beat him up the whole night. Mims really only started to get yardage when the game was long over. Stokes beat him up at the catch point. For a player that looks the part, why is he getting bullied?
There are a lot of red flags with Mims and it’s easy to look past him because of the skillset. When watching Mims, I got flashbacks of JJ Arcega-Whiteside and Cory Davis. Mims is a better version of this but a lot of his production came on fades. A lot of times, Charlie Brewer just threw it up to Mims hoping and praying something good would happen. That’s okay in the Big 12. That shit ain’t going to fly in the NFL.
Now Mims is way more dynamic than Arcega-Whiteside and can run better routes. Just the style of play at Baylor gave me pause at times. Still, he’s not the greatest route runner in the world and is super upright a lot getting in and out of breaks. My eyes just don’t pop when I watch him.
Then there’s the Cory Davis concern. One of the biggest reasons why I didn’t like Davis coming out of school was because of drops. How can you draft Davis in the top 10 when he can’t catch the football and isn’t dynamic enough to overcome it? Never made sense to me and has gone down as a mistake by the Titans. Denzel Mims has bad drop issues. How can you draft a wide receiver in the first round that stinks at catching the ball? Isn’t that the number one requirement for the position?
Mims dropped 24 balls out of 210 catchable passes in his career. Anything over a 10 percent drop rate is essentially in the get him off my draft board area. I can list two more examples off the top of my head. Nelson Agholor is a great route runner that can get open frequently. Yeah, but he can’t catch so what are we doing here? What about Braylon Edwards who was 6-foot-3 running a 4.45 who won a ton of fade routes at Michigan. Yeah, but he can’t catch soooo. Edwards didn’t have a great NFL career either. Terrell Owens is the only receiver ever who had drop issues but was a legendary player. I’ll bet Mims isn’t’ T.O.
It’s easy to fall for the cheese on this one. Denzel Mims looks like a prolific wide receiver and you can talk yourself into Mims being a star. My gut tells me something is wrong. Something is missing. Drop issues, lack of route running, lack of physicality despite a big frame. There’s a chance Mims is a productive NFL receiver but it’s hard to not be worried about him translating to the NFL.
