I Have Concerns: Joe Mixon Might Be A Fall Off Rather Than Bounce Back Candidate

Every season, players with excellent reputations and seemingly positive situations go bust without warning. Part of the pain of these scenarios is that it’s hard to see coming. Still, we have to do our best to identify red flags during draft season and attempt to avoid the land mines. One player who should come with a Yield sign is Bengals RB Joe Mixon.

Mixon is one of the more talented running backs in football, and his situation should be golden. He has no clear and present threat to his playing time, and he’s surrounded by elite WRs and a rising star at QB (Joe Burrow). And yet, Mixon often left fantasy owners cold in 2020, and he has in the past as well.

Mixon missed the majority of the season with injury last year, but averaged 3.6 yards per carry before going down. The prior year he rushed for 4.1 yards per carry, a subpar number for an “elite” back, and he also posted a 3.5 yards per carry mark as a rookie. The lower figures are starting to make the 4.9 mark in 2018 look like the aberration rather than the trend. Even scarier, his 2020 numbers are vastly inflated by a 151-yard, three-touchdown demolition of the Jaguars in Week 4. Aside from that game, Mixon had zero games with 70 rushing yards, and was held below 60 yards four times. Mixon posted 1.7 yards after contact per attempt, the lowest mark of his career, and just barely cracked the Top 50 among RBs on PFF, earning a 65.3 grade; for context, the five RBs immediately ahead of him were Carlos Hyde, Devin Singletary, James White, Leonard Fournette and Darrel Williams.  

For all the skill talent in Cincinnati, the Bengals’ offensive line did Mixon no favors. They ranked next to last in adjusted line yards (3.88), 24th in Power Success and 27th in RB yards. They also passed on a chance to significantly change that in the draft, electing to pick WR Ja’Marr Chase, Burrow’s college teammate, over T Penei Sewell. The jury is out on the pick; Chase could very well be an elite receiver for years to come, but it also means Mixon’s dire situation remains the case.

None of this means Mixon can’t be a major fantasy contributor. He should receive most of, if not all, Cincinnati’s goal line work and he may even see an uptick in his receiving numbers now that Gio Bernard is finally gone. But his yards per attempt across his career look a lot like Melvin Gordon’s, and Mixon does not have Gordon’s track record as a receiver. Don’t get me wrong, Gordon was a fantasy first-rounder for years, but he hasn’t been a 1,000-yard rusher in three seasons and has been extremely dependent on touchdowns for his fantasy scoring. Mixon might be able to do that, and if he hits double-digit scores he could deliver on his No. 15 overall ADP in half-PPR format. But Mixon’s never done that before, and he’s running behind one of the NFL’s worst offensive lines, while operating on a team that’s clearly transitioning into a pass-first attack. Buyer beware.