Welcome to the Jets, Denzel Mims, where if it wasn’t for back luck, they would have no luck at all.
The rookie wide receiver has already gotten a taste of that famous Jets bad fortune, with his career off to a rocky start before playing his first game.
The second-round draft pick out of Baylor missed virtually all of training camp with a hamstring injury, and on Thursday, he hurt the other hamstring. It will cost him Sunday’s season opener against the Bills in Buffalo, coach Adam Gase said Friday, if not more games.
“It’s not looking good,” Gase said.
The Jets coach doesn’t think this hamstring injury is as severe as the first one, yet he wouldn’t rule out Mims going on injured reserve, saying he would have to talk to general manager Joe Douglas about it. Mims would be eligible to return after three games if he did go on IR.
The rookie receiver practiced fully for the first time Wednesday, before hurting the hamstring on Thursday.
“I thought he was headed in the right direction mentally,” Gase said. “It’s a shame because [on Thursday] I thought when we were doing routes versus air, I was seeing him really coming off the ball. The way he was running, the way he’s executing some of the routes that we were doing, I was getting fired up to kind of get him in practice to see what we were [getting].”
But just as Mims began to go full throttle, a new injury has cropped up. Now, Gase and the Jets have no idea when they’ll see their new receiver back on the field.
“I feel like s— for him, because I feel like he worked really hard to get back,” Gase said. “He’s really excited to get out there, and for that to happen yesterday, I hated seeing him go through that.”
It’s lousy news for the player and the team, who are now down to four healthy receivers — Breshad Perriman, Chris Hogan, Jamison Crowder and Braxton Berrios — and were hoping the speedy 6-foot-3 Mims could provide production on the outside. Now, he could be out for multiple games, after already falling behind this summer.
On Wednesday, quarterback Sam Darnold raved about Mims, saying he has “all the things you want in a receiver.”
At the moment, there is one thing missing: His health.
