Marvin Mims can’t become a star receiver in Denver

Marvin Mims has a gift for showing up at the exact moment a franchise needs him most. The 93-yard touchdown against the Browns in 2024 that announced him as a legitimate weapon. The two clutch scores against the Bengals that clinched Denver’s first playoff appearance in a decade. The late fourth-quarter touchdown against the Bills in the AFC Divisional Round this past season that pushed the Broncos over the edge in one of the most intense games of the postseason.

Every time the moment has been biggest, Mims has delivered. That isn’t the résumé of a role player. That’s the résumé of a star.

The problem is that the Denver Broncos already have stars. Too many of them, in fact, at the exact same position.

On a recent edition of “Dover and Cecil” on 104.3 The Fan, Cecil Lammey laid out the uncomfortable reality that has been hovering over Mims’ future in Denver all offseason.

“Full disclosure, Marvin Mims wants to be a star wide receiver. He’s already a star return man, he’s already an All-Pro return man,” Lammey said.

Mims has already reached the top of one mountain, his kick and punt return ability is among the best in football. But the mountain he actually wants to climb is the one where he lines up as a featured receiver, runs full route trees, and sees the kind of target volume that turns talented players into household names.

Lammey made clear that mountain doesn’t exist in Denver.

“He wants to be a star receiver; it’s not gonna happen here. He’ll wanna go where he has a possibility of it happening,” Lammey said.

The math is what makes the situation so impossible for Mims. Jaylen Waddle and Courtland Sutton are locked in at the top. Pat Bryant has emerged as a legitimate third option after a dominant training camp. And the target share doesn’t stop at the receiver room.

“But he is so far down the pecking order if everybody’s healthy. And you know he’s competing with Troy Franklin for the seventh amount of targets. Because you have to include R.J. Harvey, you have to include Evan Engram, and then you’ve got three receivers in front of them, so there are five guys. So he’s competing for the sixth or seventh most amount of targets,” Lammey said.

Sixth or seventh on the target list. For a player with Mims’ speed, big-play ability and competitive fire, that isn’t a role; it’s a cage. He’ll still contribute on special teams. He’ll still flash in the moments where the ball finds him. But the consistent, game-in-game-out usage that transforms a talented player into a recognized star simply isn’t available to him inside this building.

Lammey closed with the empathy the situation deserves.

“It’s not the type of role that I’m sure he wants. It’s just here, they’re so packed with talent at the wide receiver position. A talented receiver like Marvin Mims, with upside like Marvin Mims, just doesn’t get the opportunity that he could elsewhere,” Lammey said.

That’s the bittersweet reality of roster construction on a team this talented. The Broncos aren’t burying Mims out of disrespect. They’re burying him because the room is simply too good. And at some point, a player with Mims’ ability and ambition is going to look across the league, see a team that will give him 80 targets instead of 30, and decide the highlights he’s been providing Denver belong somewhere that will let him create them every week.

The Broncos may not want to lose Marvin Mims. But Cecil Lammey sees the writing on the wall, and so, almost certainly, does Mims himself.

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