New York Jets quarterback hits rookie wide receiver Denzel Mims with a tremendous ball on a go-route at camp in Florham Park, NJ.
No, ladies and gents; you’re not watching “virtual practice.” What you are about to see is very real.
Young Sam Darnold delivers a tremendous ball to rookie wide receiver Denzel Mims at New York Jets camp, per the team’s official Twitter account.
Darnold to Mims 😍 pic.twitter.com/BGvm69kxq1
— New York Jets (@nyjets) July 31, 2020
Sure, it’s only a 13-second clip, but does the NFL-loving world have a choice in the matter? They’ll take whatever they can get at the moment.
Darnold, 23, is ready to enter the third year of his young professional career. After an ankle injury in 2018 and a bout with mono early last season, the USC product attempts to play a full season for the first time (during the most uncertain football season of our lives).
Mims, 22, is a kid whose presence on the team has Jets fans ecstatic. Dropping in the 2020 NFL draft for relatively unknown reasons, Joe Douglas was able to pull off a boss move: trade down in the second round and still snag the Baylor product.
Show in the video is what looks like the classic 9-route (go route), something Mims is extremely comfortable with after playing in the Big 12 for four seasons. This prompts the major question surrounding the kid coming into his rookie season: will he find success reading defenses and learning Adam Gase’s offense quickly enough to start on day No. 1?
For Darnold, this marks the first time in his three years he enters a season in year No. 2 of an offense. Thanks to the limitations every player has experienced during the pandemic, that has to be thought of as a major advantage moving forward.
On a Zoom call earlier in the week, Darnold backed his second-year Jet head coach.
“He’s the right leader for this team, for sure,” Darnold said of Gase. “I think, for me, personally, he’s helped me grow a ton as a quarterback. He does everything he can to put us in the best position to win on Sundays.”
