Texans' Joe Mixon Raises Eyebrowns With Cryptic Offseason Post

Last offseason, the Houston Texans were looking for a way to beef up their running game. After relying on Devin Singletary and Dameon Pierce in 2023, the Texans took a big swing by acquiring Joe Mixon in a trade with the Cincinnati Bengals.

Mixon’s first season in Houston went relatively well, running for 1,016 yards and 11 touchdowns in 14 games. The Texans repeated as AFC South champions before falling to the Kansas City Chiefs in the divisional round of the playoffs and Mixon seems to be a veteran leader for an ascending franchise.

All seems well for Mixon, who will turn 29 during next year’s training camp. But the Texans star raised some eyebrows with a cryptic post on Wednesday night.

Joe Mixon’s Cryptic Post Creates Plenty of Speculation About Texans’ Future

Mixon stirred the pot with a post on his X account. While the post didn’t contain any words, a simple eyes emoji opened the gateway for fans to wonder what he was talking about.

There are several things that Mixon could be referring to. The most obvious is the NFL news cycle where Myles Garrett and Cooper Kupp have both hit the trade market in the past week. 

Garrett could provide a big boost to a defense that ranked fourth with 49 sacks last season and also has an emerging star in Will Anderson Jr. Houston also has a suitable tandem with last year’s addition of Danielle Hunter and putting all three in the same defense could raise havoc against the rest of the AFC.

There’s also a chance that Mixon could be lobbying for Kupp to come to Houston. The Texans offense went from 13th in scoring in 2023 to 19th in scoring last year in large part due to injuries at receiver.

Offseason acquisition Stefon Diggs is a free agent after tearing his ACL in October and Tank Dell suffered a dislocated knee cap while tearing his ACL, MCL and meniscus during a Dec. 22 game against the Chiefs, making the receiver position one of Houston’s biggest needs.

But there could also be an underlying theme to Mixon’s post. The Texans hired Los Angeles Rams assistant Nick Caley to replace Bobby Slowik as offensive coordinator and a meeting may have Mixon just as excited about next season as some of his teammates.

There’s also a chance that the meeting went wrong and Mixon could be signaling that he could be available in the near future. According to Over The Cap, Mixon has a $9.4 million cap hit for next season and the Texans could save $5.4 million by trading him this offseason. But the market for running backs trending toward 30 isn’t high and the Texans would eat $8 million in dead cap if they designate him as a pre-June 1 release.

Then there’s a chance that Mixon could just be intrigued by the NBA Trade Deadline where Luka Doncic and Jimmy Butler have switched teams and Kevin Durant could be moved by Thursday afternoon. It’s not uncommon for athletes to have connections with other stars in town and perhaps Mixon knows that a big name is heading to the Houston Rockets.

Whether Mixon was just intrigued by a Netflix show or had something to say about the next chapter of his career, he opened the door to all of these possibilities and kicked off another cryptic post season in the NFL.

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