New York Jets Injury News: Denzel Mims & Pierre Desir Almost Back; La'Mical Perine Ankle Update

New York Jets get good news on the injury front for Denzel Mims, La'Mical Perine and Pierre Desir

For the first time in two weeks, New York Jets head coach Adam Gase had something positive to report on the injury front. For a team that has been battered with bumps, bruises and breaks, it appears that several key contributors could be returning to the field.

And it comes in time potentially for Week 1 when the Jets open at the Buffalo Bills.

Wide receiver Denzel Mims, the team’s second round pick, seems to have some momentum heading into this week after nearly three weeks away from the practice field. The former Baylor star, who had 66 catches for 1,020 yards and 12 receiving touchdowns last year, is progressing and has a chance to make it on the field come Week 1.

“We’ll see, I’m not going to predict anything,” Gase said on Tuesday in his virtual press conference following practice. “Hopefully we get him back towards the end of the week to where we can kind of see where he’s at and how he’s moving around and see if he’s used these last few weeks to really increase his knowledge of the offense. We’ll get him out there and we’ll kind of see what happens over the next 10 days.”

Another big hit to the Jets depth on offense came on Sunday at the team’s scrimmage at MetLife Stadium. Running back La’Mical Perine, a fourth round pick, went down with an ankle injury.

Post-scrimmage, Gase had sounded concern about the injury but come Tuesday, was a bit more optimistic in his assessment.

“I feel like we got lucky there. As bad as that looked, it’s a low ankle,” Gase said. “We had MRIs, we did everything to make sure there wasn’t any kind of fractures, there wasn’t any ligament damage. So hopefully we’ll get him back a lot sooner than the way that play looked.”

Gase had praised Perine last week for having a solid training camp including showing off some impressive speed on several long runs in a scrimmage.

Though it comes on defense, another big piece who is closer to resuming training is cornerback Pierre Desir (hamstring). The free agent signing is also eyeing a full potential return to the practice field this week.

“Yeah, I think there’s about three guys I think that, I don’t want to jinx myself, but I think there’s about three guys that over the next few days we should at least see in individual and then progressing from there,” Gase said when asked about Desir. “I’m looking at that as a big positive, especially because they’re all DBs or wide receivers. The whole thing is making sure that we progress the right way, so we don’t get them out there and all of a sudden, we lose them again.”