Joe Mixon is a polarizing player, and for good reason. On the one hand, his advanced metrics don’t point to a particularly great player. He has also struggled with pass protection and has had some precarious character-based red flags.
Yet, he has been a starter in Cincinnati for years, maintained good physical health, played on some excellent teams, and produced decent counting stats. In an era in which RBs are generally left unpaid, Mixon has been extended twice — once in 2020 and once on Thursday. We can criticize and second-guess all we want, but Mixon will get a shot to lead the backfield in Houston. It’s an exciting young offense, and he is being paid as if they want him to carry the load as a featured back.
Let’s set the character stuff aside; feelings about these are bound to be more complicated for fantasy players, and that’s understandable. If you don’t enjoy cheering for Mixon, you shouldn’t; if you wish to offer him grace, that’s equally reasonable. But we can’t use this space for such debates; what we can do is focus on the player we’ve seen on the field.
WHY MIXON IS A PAPER TIGER
In five of his seven career seasons, Mixon has negative overall fantasy points over expectation (FPOE). FPOE is measured on a deviation scale where zero is the mean. Positive numbers indicate the player is getting more than is expected based on what other players in similar situations do. Negative numbers indicate the player is getting less. The bigger the number on either extreme, the better or worse the player is compared to the mean. In straightforward terms, FPOE is an excellent indicator of talent. Since Mixon is below zero in 71% of his seasons, it could indicate that he is a below-average RB.
As I noted above, he has a terrible reputation as a pass-blocker (although he does run more routes than most starters, mitigating the effects somewhat). In 2023, Mixon was also tied for ninth worst in rushing yards after contact (ruYAC) among RBs with at least 50 carries, and he is not elite in any evasion or tackle-breaking stats. The line in Cincinnati was not the greatest, but neither is the line in Houston, and frankly, as good as the Texans’ offense has become, it’s hard to consider it an improvement over the Bengals’, which has been a well-oiled machine since 2021.
WHY MIXON HAS EARNED HIS STRIPES
Mixon came into the league as a part of that incredible 2017 rookie RB class, which boasted Christian McCaffrey, Alvin Kamara, Dalvin Cook, Aaron Jones, Leonard Fournette, Kareem Hunt, James Conner, D’Onta Foreman, and Jamaal Williams. He has more than held his own statistically, finishing as a top-14 RB in PPR leagues in five of the past six years. He has also averaged 278 opportunities (OPPs), 42.1 receptions (reRECS), 9.67 TDs, and a top-13 expected points (EP) rank for six straight seasons. He has only fumbled twice during that same time frame, which is very good for someone with that level of volume, and he has been credited with some improvement as a shaky pass blocker in recent seasons.
Fantasy players should understand that PPR points, top-12 finishes (of which he’s had four), OPPs, reRECS, and very high EP are some of the most stable metrics and best predictors of future success for fantasy RBs. Before we go full-hipster, we should recognize that we are dealing with a player who keeps proving us wrong. We can look pretty silly as we criticize the bad business decisions of the public tycoon who keeps cashing a new $50 million check every day. There’s nothing about Mixon’s station in Houston today that says he can’t keep proving us wrong.
