Despite being involved in an incident similar to the one that ended Ray Rice’s playing career, former Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon is likely going to be drafted by an NFL team in April. I mean, there are worse people playing in the NFL right now anyway, right?
That’s the logic one scout used when speaking with Albert Breer of The MMQB. The scout, who is assigned to the Sooners, said he believes Mixon will find a home and compared him to Kansas City Chiefs special teams star Tyreek Hill.
“It needs to be the right market, a team that can handle the onslaught, the right PR staff, because you’ll have to weather the storm,” the scout told Breer. “But the guy the Chiefs drafted [Tyreek Hill], Joe Mixon isn’t half the d—–bag that guy was. You’d have to search to find people that don’t like him. Maybe the parking-lot attendant. Everyone there loves him. And I believe them.”
So, because Mixon is more well-liked than a current NFL player who allegedly punched his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach and choked her, he should have no problem finding a team to draft him? Sadly, that is often the way it works in the NFL, where talent is almost always the most important quality a player can possess.
Mixon punched a woman in the face and knocked her unconscious in July 2014, and the disturbing footage was released a few months ago. He told police after the incident that he thought he may have been slapped in the face by a man, though the video clearly shows him staring right at the women before unloading a vicious blow. Compared to that, the incident involving the parking attendant during last season seems like nothing.
Does everyone make mistakes? Sure, but there are some that are unforgivable and should cost you your career. Fortunately for Mixon, the NFL exists in its own universe and doesn’t subscribe to society’s unwritten rules.
