Does Detroit Lions receiver Denzel Mims have a chip on his shoulder?
“(Expletive) yeah,” he said Monday after he finished practice with his new team in Allen Park. “(Expletive) yeah.”
That’s a start, eh?
A little something for Dan Campbell and Ben Johnson and Jared Goff to work with?
Then again, most professional athletes who don’t meet their potential with the team that drafted them — especially high in the draft — say similar things upon arrival to their next team, particularly when the destination is seen as a second chance, which the Lions most certainly are for Mims.
So, what he said Monday afternoon at the Lions practice facility in Allen Park is hardly groundbreaking or surprising. But it doesn’t mean that what he said wasn’t sincere — or true.
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Whether he finds his way now that he’s out of New Jersey where he played for the New York Jets is a different question. At the very least, the Lions gave up little to get him; a late-round swap in the 2025 NFL draft, and a conditional one at that.
And if he doesn’t work out here in Detroit? The Lions have risked almost nothing.
But if he does?
Well, then the Brad Holmes-Dan Campbell machine keeps whirring, and the general manager and head coach further prove their eye for finding talent, specifically talent that fits the kind of locker room they continue to build.
“We know the kid will work,” said Campbell. “We’ve heard that. He has a level of toughness about him, so let’s see where we can take it.”
Every team in the league believes they can provide the culture that unlocks a talented, but struggling player, much in the same way every struggling but talented player believes they just need a chance. Mims will get that chance here.
With Jameson Williams suspended for the first six games of the season, the Lions could use a downfield threat. Though Mims insisted he’s more than simply a fly-route kind of guy.
When asked what his best asset was Monday, he said:
“Everything.”
Mims believes the Lions won’t box him into a narrow role as the Jets did. Oh, he didn’t say the Jets did that, not directly, but he sure implied it when he met with reporters after practice.
“I finally get to go out there and do everything I want to do,” he said.
Finally?
A loaded word in this context, for sure. And if you ask the Jets, they’d have a different idea of what “finally” means, at least privately.
Publicly?
Here’s what Jets head coach Robert Saleh told ProFootballTalk last Thursday:
“I appreciate Denzel. We wish him luck. He’s big, long, strong and fast. He’ll have an opportunity to play for another team and show why everyone’s so excited about him.”
Hard to blame Saleh for taking the high road here. Clearly, though, a team doesn’t ship off a player with that description for a conditional late-round swap pick if there weren’t issues. The good news is that one team’s issues are so often not another’s.
Thus, the (slight) gamble.
Again, teams love to bank on their own informal psychology departments, their culture, as it were. That’s what Campbell means when he said Mims might benefit from a “change in scenery.”
Mims did his best Monday — more or less — to avoid dogging his former franchise and said a few times he was determined to focus on his new team, his new home, his new opportunity. He even said he was grateful the Jets gave him a chance.
Yet there were moments his frustration slipped through. Like when he described his reaction to the news he’d been traded last week.
“I was pretty happy,” he said. “(It’s) fresh start, a new start for me. I was excited to get here. I wanted to get here right away so I could get acclimated to the team, get used to the team … I love Detroit. I love the coaches. I love the players. The vibes here are a lot better.”
Vibes are important, no doubt. Heck, they can be everything. If you’re not vibing, you’re not connecting, and if you’re not connecting, you’re most likely getting in the way — of yourself and those around you.
As for the “vibes” being better in Detroit? Mims isn’t the first to say this. So that gives his words a bit more heft.
It also speaks to a developing pattern and, more critically, a budding reputation that the Lions are run by folks for whom players might want to suit up. This is a relatively new development for this franchise, and to keep the perception moving, the franchise will have to win some games this fall on the bigger stages it’s been given.
That’ll take talent as well as vibes. And the Lions can never have enough of it.
The Jets took Mims with a second-round pick in 2020. It’s not hard to see why he was so highly thought of coming out of Baylor. He’s 6 feet 3 and ran a 4.3-second 40-yard dash in the NFL combine.
“He’s a guy that has tools,” said Campbell. “This guy has the ability, let’s see if we can do something.”
Mims thinks he’s ready, that’s he grown and learned and is hardly short of motivation. That chip on his shoulder? The Lions are hoping to exploit it. That started when they traded for him and told him they wanted him here.
“They believe in me,” Mims said. “And (that gives) me a lot of confidence.”
Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @shawnwindsor.