To watch Marvin Mims Jr. glide, his trainer Margin Hooks suggests, is to watch a racehorse.
Hooks is a country man, through and through. Texas-born. Southern-made. And in all his 25 years of coaching, Mims stands alone. Different than anyone, Hooks marveled. The gait, all big feet and long legs, is lethally effortless.
Ever run behind a horse, Hooks asked? You can try. You can huff and puff until your lungs scream. Still, the horse will look like it’s trotting.
“Then you look,” Hooks described, “and it’s pulling away from you quickly. It’s like — ‘It’s just jogging, though!’”
“That’s Marvin.”
Eventually, Hooks realized he needed to just let the kid run “the Marvin way,” as he puts it. But at first, Hooks didn’t quite understand him. Many didn’t. Mims would house a bag of potato chips and a Gatorade and then turn on the burners. And Hooks would yell at him because he just made it look too easy.
Years later, Mims lounged on a bench bordering the Broncos’ practice facility in July. He chuckled when told of Hooks’ initial frustrations.
“It’s something that’s like — every coach, everybody says,” Mims said with a grin. “‘You don’t look like you’re moving.’
“Until you go out there and really see. And it’s like, ‘Marvin’s runnin.’ ”
In Year 3 in Denver, Marvin’s finally running. The former Oklahoma wideout has never quite needed a tap. He’s just needed his coaches to loosen the reins. He quickly dashed to All-Pro status as a returner in his first two years with the Broncos, but he was generally stuck with a handful of posts and go-balls in a limited route tree. Then, head coach Sean Payton came to him in November in Kansas City with an idea to stick him in the backfield, and Mims’ world opened up.
This year, his role as a receiver is more “well-rounded,” Mims described. It needs to be. At all of 23 years old, he’s suddenly the second-most experienced Bronco in a young wideout room.
Denver Broncos wide receiver Marvin Mims Jr. (19) drives the ball down the field at Geha Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri on Nov. 10, 2024. The Kansas City Chiefs won 16-14 over the Denver Broncos during week 10 of the NFL season. (Photo by RJ Sangosti/The Denver Post)
Hooks, this offseason, has been trying to get Mims to understand: He’s the guy, now. The “last of the Mohicans,” as Hooks put it, in a room that’s seen a revolving door behind Courtland Sutton at WR2 from Jerry Jeudy to Josh Reynolds. Mims racked up 503 receiving yards and six touchdowns in his second year after a late-season surge. Hooks believes he’ll be a 1,000-yard receiver in 2025.
“He’s not even that type of person with numbers,” Hooks said. “He just wants more than what he’s had before. And I know right now, he wants a lot more than he had before.
“Not, like, OK, a little bit, percentage-wise. Like, ‘Nah. I’m ready to be the man now.’ So that’s what he’s been preparing for, physically and mentally.”
He’s looked it during training camp. For two years in Denver, as Mims said, he didn’t run most of the routes he’s running now. Comebacks. Corners. Drags. End-arounds. Both a complete receiver and a gadget weapon, all in one.
It’s similar to how staff at Lone Star High used Mims back in high school, setting the single-season state record for receiving yards as a senior in Texas. Lone Star head coach Jeff Rayburn remembered, had a “Marvin Rule.” He’d run 17 yards on a route instead of 15, his feet moving too quickly for regular timing. So, the Rangers would add 2 yards to the depth of any route he ran.
“He just runs so effortlessly,” Rayburn said. “He just glides.”
Effortlessness, though, implies a lack of effort — a perception he’s fought against for years. At Oklahoma, Mims was the latest in a long lineage of Sooner wideouts who carried themselves like a dude, because they were. He came in a year after CeeDee Lamb left. Lamb followed in the footsteps of Marquise Brown before him. And Brown followed Dede Westbrook before him.
Five-star talent after five-star talent. Mims was expected to come with flash.
That just “wasn’t me,” Mims shrugged.
“I’m not like a hoo-rah guy,’” Mims smiled. “I’m not going to post a lot on social media, all that stuff. I’m just go to class, go to meetings, go to practice, do all you do.
“And I feel like at OU, that’s when they got on me most about it. That’s when it was more of, like, a weird thing.”
He racked up 1,083 yards as a junior at Oklahoma and was picked by the Broncos in the second round of the 2023 draft. Still, he came out of college with the perception he didn’t have a fully-developed route tree, a perception he’s been fighting ever since. He was asked to run slants and choice routes as a Sooner, Rayburn defends. He’s been asked to run deep in Denver or get his hands on returns.
Now, Mims has officially been starting at the Z, as Broncos wideouts coach Keary Colbert has told Hooks. And Hooks has been trying to instill a certain “swagger” in his pupil.
“It’s funny,” Mims said, “because he’s been trying to get that outta me since, like, college.”
Denver Broncos wide receiver Marvin Mims Jr. (19) stretches during training camp at Broncos Park Powered by CommonSpirit in Centennial on Friday, July 25, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
It’s never quite taken, because Mims blows past defenders with the urgency of a turtle despite the speed of a hare. Mims, though, feels it coming. You could “see the confidence” when he started getting touches midseason in 2024, as general manager George Paton said a few months back.
When he first arrived in Denver, Mims recounted, Broncos safety and former OU teammate Delarrin Turner-Yell issued a warning to staff and DBs alike on the wideout’s cool gait. Don’t fall for that. That dude’s moving.
There is nothing to control, now. The limits on his game are gone. There is only the horse, trotting free.
“Once he catches the ball, I look at those first three steps,” Hooks said of offseason work with Mims. “When he gets upfield. I can see, sometimes receivers, they have a pep in their step.
“When you know you’re the man, you look different. That top horse moves different. Different than anybody.”
Receivers drafted under Sean Payton
A number of wide receivers popped in their second year under Broncos head coach Sean Payton, but it took Mims until the second half of his second season to truly break out. Will that burst carry over into Year 3? Mobile users, tap here to see the chart.
Name, team
Year 2 (Rec-Yds- TD)
Year 3 (Rec-Yds- TD)
Marvin Mims Jr., Denver
39-503-6
TBD
Marques Colston, New Orleans
98-1202-11
47-760-5
Robert Meachem, New Orleans
45-722-9
44-638-5
Kenny Stills, New Orleans
63-931-3
27-440-3
Brandin Cooks, New Orleans
84-1138-9
78-1173-8
Michael Thomas, New Orleans
104-1245-5
125-1405-9
Tre’Quan Smith, New Orleans
18-234-5
34-448-4
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