Okay, I'll bite. What are Mixon's football-related red flags? You keep vaguely referencing them, but fail to cite any specific examples like I did with Lenny, CMC and Cook. If it's just "well, he could turn out to be not good at football," that just goes back to my point that ALL rookies are unproven until they aren't and carry some degree of risk. But on paper and on tape, Mixon at least appears to be the most complete back in this class, and he also landed in one of the best possible spots in terms of rushing volume over the past several years. I'm not saying he's guaranteed to be successful. My only issue was that it seems disingenuous to label him as somehow riskier than the other three top backs in this class when they all have their fair share of concerns.Vcize wrote: ↑Sat Jun 17, 2017 8:00 amAgain, Mixon punching another girl is not his only risk. There's still a fairly sizable risk that he's not a good NFL running back, or not a workhorse NFL RB, or not a between the tackles NFL player. All of these things would have been getting more publicity if there weren't such a big dramatic story about him overshadowing it all. It's a trap to assume that his off the field issues are his only risk.M-Dub wrote: ↑Sat Jun 17, 2017 1:01 amI understand the topic at hand. My point was that all first round picks have the potential to bust. I'm just more confident in Mixon not punching another girl than I am in, say, CMac bulking up to a 220 pound bellcow and Rivera suddenly incorporating his RB into the passing game.drbuttermaker wrote: ↑Fri Jun 16, 2017 2:47 pm If your strategy is accepting such a high risk, more power to you, but the topic at hand is how to avoid first round busts. A person trying to do that does not draft Joe Mixon.
I think it's important to keep context in mind when it comes to Mixon's off-field incident. He didn't rough up his wife/girlfriend or beat his child with a tree branch. A drunken, belligerent stranger called him the n-word to his face and he snapped. That strikes me as something that's more likely to be an isolated incident rather than an indication of a pattern of abusive behavior. To paraphrase Chris Rock, I'm not saying he should've punched her... but I understand.
As far as CMac goes, there are way more undersized players who lit it up in college and couldn't hang at the NFL level than ones who succeeded. But hey, maybe he's the next Jamaal Charles. If you think that's a safer bet than a more prototypically-sized three-down back who hit a girl once, then it just comes down to a difference of opinion on how we each weigh risk vs. potential. Neither of us can be decisively right or wrong on this for another 3-4 years, so we'll just have to agree to disagree for now.