Cincinnati Bengals running back Joe Mixon is headed into the final year of his rookie contract, and the organization clearly wants to ensure that it isn’t his last with the organization.
Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin said that the team is beginning preliminary discussions with Mixon about a long-term contract.
“Joe’s obviously a guy that’s shown a lot of ability,” Tobin told Lance McAlister of 700 WLW, via Josh Alper of ProFootballTalk. “He’s in a year that he can be extended, and he is a guy that we visited with. We’ll go through those discussions and see if there is a fit or a match for a long-term contract with him, obviously a guy we value quite a bit. The great thing about Joe is he goes about it the right way … He’s the type of guy you want to lock up to a long-term deal. We’ll see if we can find the commonality to get that done over time here.”
Mixon posted his second straight 1,000-yard rushing season last year for the Bengals, and has quickly grown into one of the league’s more capable backs. He turns 24 in July, so he should have plenty of good years left. As the Bengals rebuild their offense, one would think that they’d want Mixon to be an option for new quarterback Joe Burrow going forward.
