The Great Debate: Joe Mixon (2021 Fantasy Football) | FantasyPros

We’re rolling out our debate series where one writer higher on a given player will take on another that’s lower than our expert consensus rankings.Up next, we have Matt Barbato and Derek Lofland debating Cincinnati Bengals running back Joe Mixon.Previous DebatesJoin our Discord to Chat with Experts and FantasyPros Subscribers >>While it wasn’t always pretty, Joe Mixon was the RB9 in half-PPR through the first six weeks of the season before a foot injury suffered in Week 6 ultimately ended his season. The only reason Bernard saw an uptick in touches to 171 last year is that Mixon missed 10 games with an injury. He will likely have to fight for every yard running behind one of the weaker offensive lines in the league.Finally, Mixon has had some terrible games the last two years playing behind bad offensive lines. And that brings me to your point about his history of terrible games.For his entire career, Mixon has been plagued by bad offensive line play and awful quarterback play. Cincinnati’s passing offense has ranked 27th, 24th, 19th, and 27th in Mixon’s four seasons. The Packers were ninth in passing yards gained and eighth in rushing yards gained last year.It does help to have a strong passing game to balance out the offense and help the running game, but it is not necessary. While this defense may be improved this year with their offseason additions, it hardly feels like a defense destined to be in the Top-10 in yards allowed or points allowed.Finally, there is no disputing Mixon’s strong 2018 season. For fantasy owners that drafted him as an RB1 that year, they had to deal with Mixon being the 32nd ranked running back for the first eight games, including four games with 17 yards rushing or less.That carried into 2020. Mixon has a high ceiling evidenced by his 2018 season and some of the good games he had in 2019 and 2020, but he has too low of a floor across too many games and not enough improvements to the offensive line and defense for me to be excited about him in 2021. Now that Bernard is gone, are we finally going to get a full season’s worth of 20-plus touch games for Mixon?