In the two years that Joe Mixon spent at Oklahoma he scored 17 rushing touchdowns, he also racked up 2,027 yards rushing on 300 carries, that works out to 6.8 yards per carry. He also was able to bring in 65 passes for 894 receiving yards and nine touchdowns. Just looking at these numbers, one would think that there would be a long line of NFL teams waiting to draft him, but not everything is about what happens between those white lines.
The incident
In 2014 Mixon was involved in an incident at a Norman, Oklahoma sandwich shop. Mixon punched a female classmate of his, Amelia Moliter.
He hit her so hard that he broke four bones in her face and she needed to have her jaw wired shut. Mixon was charged with an assault and was suspended for an entire season. The worst thing about the entire situation is that The Incident did not receive the national coverage until two years later when the security tape footage was released on December 16, 2016. It seems as thought the general public needs video proof in order to consider it a heinous act, when all the proof one needs is to look at Amelia Moliter drinking her meals through a straw. If the assault would not have been recorded it would have been no less appalling. This is quite similar to the Ray Rice situation that happened a number of years ago.
Rice was accused of assaulting his fiance in an elevator. Originally, Rice was only suspended for two games, after the video of the incident was released he was suspended for the entire season and has yet to return to the NFL.
Mixon has recently came out and publicly apologized for his actions. He stated that he had made a bad decision and that he has to re-live it everyday.
He went on to say that he wished he could take it back but he can't. Mixon said that he would have apologized earlier, but his legal team had advised him that it would not have been in his best interest. It is understood that lawyers need to look out for the best of their client, but in what world would coming out and apologizing portray somebody in a negative light.
The apology feels a bit hollow when it has come two years after the assault took place.
Where Will Mixon fall?
The NFL has recently implemented a policy that players that are convicted of certain crimes will not be invited to the combine, due to this new policy Mixon will not be attending the combine. Right now, draft experts have Mixon going somewhere in the third round, guessing where Mixon will fall is just that, a guess. There have been rumblings about the Vikings possibly giving Mixon a shot after they declined Adrian Peterson's 2017 option. It all depends on how a team looks at him, purely as a football talent, or as a person. This means that NFL teams will have to study film in order to evaluate Mixon, he is hoping that the scouts don't evaluate one specific film clip.
