The New York Jets enjoyed an active offseason between free agency, trades, and the NFL draft.

But the work doesn’t have to stop now. It can’t stop.

Despite everything they’ve done, the Jets still aren’t close to being considered a championship-caliber team, or even a playoff-caliber one. They are coming off a three-win season in which they were outscored by 203 points. After trading two of their best players in-season, they proceeded to have the worst month of December in NFL history (-107 point differential).

That’s a colossal hole to dig out of.

This team has a long, long, long way to go, which means they must stay vigilant toward improving the roster for 365 days a year.

As we creep toward the end of May, that means the Jets’ current task is to keep their eyes peeled for opportunities to strike on the trade market.

Could they find a steal out of the Mile High City?

Marvin Mims to the Jets?

There are plenty of trade candidates around the NFL heading into training camp. One of them plays a position that is arguably still the Jets’ greatest position of need outside of quarterback: wide receiver.

That man would be Marvin Mims, Denver’s 2023 second-round pick.

Mims, 24, hasn’t quite lived up to his second-round potential. In three seasons (48 games, 13 starts), Mims has caught 98 of 136 targets (72.1%) for 1,202 yards and eight touchdowns, adding 34 carries for 150 yards and a touchdown.

The Oklahoma product is entering a contract year. Combined with his lackluster production and the Broncos’ offseason acquisition of star wideout Jaylen Waddle, Mims is likely to be buried on Denver’s depth chart. With Waddle, Courtland Sutton, and Troy Franklin ahead of him, Mims is poised to be the Broncos’ WR4 at best, and that’s if he can outperform Pat Bryant and Lil’Jordan Humphrey in camp.

All of those factors make Mims an ideal trade candidate. The Broncos would likely prefer to turn Mims into future draft compensation instead of keeping him as a backup and potentially letting him walk for nothing. Meanwhile, other teams around the NFL could be intrigued enough by Mims’ potential to give up a pick that Denver would be willing to accept.

The Jets could be one of those teams.

After a season in which no player on their roster ranked among the NFL’s top 100 players in receiving yards, the Jets had a glaring need at wide receiver going into the offseason. Ultimately, they didn’t do much about it.

New York entered the NFL draft without making a single noteworthy addition at the position. They ended up trading back into the first round to select Indiana’s Omar Cooper Jr. with the 30th overall pick, which is a big-time pickup for the long haul. But Cooper is a rookie, so the Jets should keep their expectations in check for the 2026 season.

Not to mention, even with the Cooper addition, the depth chart is still extremely thin. The next man up, by a wide margin over the players behind him, is the speedy but erratic Adonai Mitchell, who has been extremely drop-prone in his career (15.2% drop rate) and saw the Colts give up on him in his second season despite being a second-round pick.

New York recently signed veteran wideout Tim Patrick, but Patrick is 32 years old and only caught 15 passes in 16 games last year, so he hardly solves anything.

The Jets are looking at a Week 1 wide receiver depth chart that looks like this:

  • Garrett Wilson
  • Omar Cooper Jr.
  • Adonai Mitchell
  • Tim Patrick
  • Isaiah Williams

It’s still one of the worst groups in the NFL. The hope is that Cooper can eventually become the WR2 that New York has lacked, and the Jets would love for it to happen immediately (and it could!), but his odds of being that player as a rookie are low.

If Cooper has a typical rookie season, the Jets’ wide receiver unit will be essentially unchanged from 2025. That would likely sink the offense and lead to another season that is over well before Halloween.

Mims’ ceiling would be much-welcomed in this room. While he isn’t proven enough to be a surefire solution, he would give the Jets a third high-ceiling lottery ticket between himself, Cooper, and Mitchell, yielding decent odds that at least one player steps up as a reliable WR2 in 2026.

Sure, things have not quite worked out for Mims in Denver. But his ceiling could be in front of him. As a player who entered the league at 21, he’ll still be just 24 throughout the 2026 season despite being in his fourth year.

What makes Mims intriguing is the production he’s delivered per target. He has been unable to maintain high-volume production for Denver—never earning the necessary snaps or targets to do so—but when they’ve thrown the ball his way, he’s delivered positive results.

Mims has caught 72.1% of his career targets for 12.3 yards per reception. That gives him an average of 8.8 yards per target, which ranks 24th among the 110 wide receivers with at least 100 targets since 2023.

This is a product of Mims’ excellent work as a deep threat. Of his 1,202 career receiving yards, 526 of them (43.8%) came on deep receptions (20+ air yards), along with five of his eight receiving touchdowns. He needs to become far more productive in the short and intermediate areas if he wants to be an NFL starter, but we know that he can definitely take the top off the defense.

This is the type of field-stretching that New York’s offense lacks. The current hope is that Cooper or Mitchell can provide it, but both players are projections at this point. Mims, at the very least, has proven that he can stretch the field, even if other parts of his game are a work in progress.

Another positive trait in Mims’ game is his hands. He’s been credited with just four drops in his career, per Pro Football Focus, giving him a 3.9% drop rate. That’s about a quarter of Mitchell’s career rate (15.2%) and slightly lower than Cooper’s career rate against college competition (4.2%).

On top of his receiving production, Mims is an elite returner, earning two All-Pro nods for his efforts on special teams. He leads the NFL with 15.8 yards per punt return over the last three seasons, and he can return kickoffs as well.

New York doesn’t have an immediate need for a returner, as they have two returners who earned All-Pro votes last season, Isaiah Williams and Kene Nwangwu. However, neither of those players offers much value beyond returning, so it could be appealing for the Jets to land a player who is equally dominant in the return game while also contributing offensively. That’s smart roster construction.

The Jets are equipped with 10 picks in the 2027 NFL draft. They have their own fourth-round pick, their own fifth-round pick, and three sixth-round picks.

It would be worthwhile to give the Broncos a call and see if they’d be willing to part with Mims for a sixth-round pick. A fifth-round pick may even be worth the shot if New York is particularly fond of Mims’ fit in their offensive scheme.

Jets general manager Darren Mougey has generally done a great job with pick-for-player trades thus far. His 2025 deals for Harrison Phillips and Jowon Briggs were successful.

The Briggs move is particularly relevant here. Mougey bought low on a talented player who was buried within a stacked unit in Cleveland, and once he got an expanded role in New York, his production exploded.

Perhaps this is Mougey’s opportunity to execute the offensive equivalent of the Briggs deal.