After a disappointing rookie season, New York Jets’ Denzel Mims is the perfect buy low candidate in fantasy football.
When the Jets’ selected Denzel Mims in the second round of the NFL draft, expectations for the rookie to produce were high. The Baylor product had a good college career posting nearly 3,000 yards receiving and 28 touchdowns during his four years at the school.
Unfortunately, his first year with the Jets would be plagued by a myriad of troubles.
Quarterback Sam Darnold would have an unforeseen regression, head coach Adam Gase would coach a historically bad offense, and Mims himself missed multiple games due to injury. Despite these issues, Mims still showed signs that a potential outbreak is on the horizon.
Mims is only one of seven wide receivers since 1970 to have at least 40 yards in his first six games to start his NFL career. He joined some elite company too, including another rookie (CeeDee Lamb), along with proven studs Stefon Diggs, Michael Thomas, and Amari Cooper. He ranked 14th in yards per reception per PFF, ahead of players such as A.J. Brown, Calvin Ridley, and Julio Jones.
In college, Mims faced the most amount of press coverage among the elite prospects and that didn’t change much in the NFL.
Denzel Mims had the fourth smallest cushion and the fifth least amount of separation among all wide receivers; something that reflected his time in college. Despite that, he still had the 11th best +/- under the same criteria, showing that he can maintain success through both the college and professional levels.
His 56.1 receiving percentage certainly isn’t something to be excited about (11th worst among WR’s with at least 40 targets), but context matters. Sam Darnold and Joe Flacco were two of the five worst quarterbacks in the league this season, posting the 3rd and 5th worst grades in the NFL per PFF (min 100 dropbacks).
The guys at FFAstronauts do a great job breaking down Mims’ film, illustrating his potential going forward.
So why is Mims a buy low candidate?
With Robert Saleh as the new head coach of the Jets, he’s brought along Mike LaFleur to be the new offensive coordinator. LaFleur was the passing game coordinator for the 49ers, and if he intends on bringing a similar scheme to the Jets it would do wonders for Denzel Mims going forward.
Running a scheme that utilizes a lot of motion and crossing patterns helps play to Mims’ strengths, as well as covering his weaknesses. His ability to line up anywhere on the field makes him a perfect candidate to thrive in this new system.
As of now Mims isn’t even a Top-100 player in dynasty formats and is the WR49 according to ECR. It makes sense to be bullish on him. The Jets offense did him no favors, and even when he was targeted more than five times per game he only averaged 9.8 FPPG in PPR formats. But fantasy football is all about opportunity and talent, and he will have both going forward.
There’s no question Mims is going to be the #1 WR for the Jets for the presumable future. Whether the team sticks with Sam Darnold, brings in Deshaun Watson, or drafts a rookie to play quarterback, it won’t hinder his production in my opinion due to the scheme applied by coach LaFleur.
With Mims being owned in less than 10% of all fantasy football leagues he can be bought for pennies on the dollar, while the potential production out of him can score you a future stud for years to come.
The time to buy low on Denzel Mims is now, and it can be done cheap. Reap the rewards instead of kicking yourself down the road when his production matches his potential on a team bound to turn things around under new management.
