“His future is here with the team,” Taylor told reporters regarding Mixon, including Ben Baby of ESPN.com. “I like Joe Mixon.”
Those comments are certainly more definitive than those made by VP of player personnel Duke Tobin and executive VP Katie Blackburn earlier this offseason. When asked whether the club would retain Mixon, Tobin said, “I don’t know,” and Blackburn was similarly noncommittal. Several weeks ago, a report from Paul Dehner Jr. of The Athletic suggested that Mixon will ultimately be asked to take a pay cut.
A pay cut may be the best outcome for both sides, as the Bengals would retain a 2021 Pro Bowler while reducing his $12.8M cap number, and Mixon would avoid becoming a late addition to a free agent market that has proven quite unfriendly to running backs. Plus, it’s not as though he would be hitting the market with a great deal of momentum. He posted a subpar 3.9 YPC in 2022 and is presently facing a misdemeanor charge of aggravated menacing.
If player and team do not discuss or come to terms on a salary reduction, the Bengals could release Mixon with a post-June 1 designation and shave over $10M off their 2023 ledger. However, that would put a great deal of pressure on Trayveon Williams (47 career carries), Chris Evans (17 career carries), and fifth-round rookie Chase Brown.
If Cincy had been able to re-sign Samaje Perine, perhaps the club would have been more inclined to move on from Mixon and deploy a Perine/Brown tandem at the top of the RB depth chart. Or, if a blue-chip prospect like Bijan Robinson had fallen to them in this year’s draft, the Bengals might have been comfortable with such a player taking over RB1 duties right away. As it stands, however, it would seem that a team with Super Bowl aspirations would not immediately hand the running back reins to Brown, no matter how high his upside might be. So Taylor’s comments with respect to Mixon, who has joined the team for voluntary workouts, make sense.
For his part, Brown — a Doak Walker Award finalist who rushed for 1,643 yards and posted 13 total TDs in his final season with Illinois — is excited to work with Mixon.
“They have a great running back there right now, Joe Mixon, who I grew up watching and watched a lot through college,” Brown said. “So I’m excited to come in, learn from him, learn from the coaching staff and produce on Sundays.”
