Joe Mixon 2021 Fantasy Outlook
In 2020 Joe Mixon finished as the RB48 in PPR leagues but he only played six games. His per game pace was RB11.
In 2019 he finished as RB13 and in 2018 he finished as RB10 on only 14 games (RB9 in points per game).
His current ADP on Fantasy Football Calculator is RB14, below his 2020 per-game pace, below his 2019 finish and below his 2018 finish. He’s on an improving offense and has just lost the backfield competition that frustrated fantasy managers in previous seasons. Yet, the common phrase out there seems to be “I’m not doing it again”.
Should we be doing it again? I’m going to look at a couple of the things that caused us some anguish in the past and see whether we should be concerned about them again in 2021.
Consistency
In his career to date, Mixon has played 50 games. He’s been an RB1 in 16 of them, an RB2 in 10 of them and an RB3 in 14 of them. That’s 80-percent of his games as an RB3 and just over half as an RB2.
We should try and eliminate the early games of his career where he wasn’t really starting much, and those games where he was injured or missed significant time. So lets split it down based on snap count.
Starting low, in games where he played 40-percent of the snaps, only 5 of 44 games (11-percent) were lower than RB3 and 59-percent of his games were RB2 or better. Jump to a 60-percent snap share and only 1 game was outside of RB3 range, with 71-percent of his games at RB2 or better. And the sweet spot, in 15 games with over 70-percent snap share he has posted RB1 numbers 60-percent of the time, RB2 or better 80-percent of the time and 0 games outside of RB3 range.
Let me summarise that:
- 70-percent snap share: RB1 = 60-percent; RB2+ = 80-percent
- 60-percent snap share: RB1 = 46-percent; RB2+ = 71-percent
- 40-percent snap share: RB1 = 36-percent; RB2+ = 59-percent
@pahowdy recently posted this table about useable weeks between 2013 and 2020.
For a top 12 RB, they generally finish inside the top 12 (RB1) only 37.6-percent of the time and inside the top 24 (RB2+) only 64.7-percent of the time.
Look again at Mixon’s numbers, he almost hits these thresholds when only playing 40-percent of snaps and he smashes them when he plays more. When he gets 70-percent of snaps, he’s pretty close to the top 5.
So he just needs the time on the field. What has stopped that in the recent past? Not being used in hurry-up situations and negative gamescripts is the main one but Giovani Bernard is gone and do we really think that he’s going to come off the field often for Samaje Perine (who only had more than two targets once in 2020 when filling in) or Chris Evans (a 6th round pick)? Besides, even if he does cede some of this workload, he only needs 40-percent (a number he’s only failed to get to once since his rookie year) to put him in that top 12 realm. That’s the floor.
Scoring Opportunities
The Bengals have not been the highest scoring team around over the years but with Joe Burrow at the helm last year they put up 30+ points in almost half of their games with a per-game average that dropped by a whole touchdown after Burrow got injured.
They’re an improving team and their implied total scoring this year puts them somewhere around the 35 touchdown mark (16-game pace).
In the games Mixon played in 2020, he accounted for 33-percent of his team’s touchdowns. In 2019 it was 30-percent. If we extrapolate that out for 2021 and take 30-percent of the 35 expected touchdowns, that’s 10.5 touchdowns (which was also his 16 game pace before he got injured). Lets round it down to 10 touchdowns (28-percent of his team’s touchdowns).
In 2020, here were the Running Backs that scored 10 or more total touchdowns and where they finished in PPR:
You want to talk upside? What happens if the Bengals hit their straps and score closer to 40 touchdowns. Under the same theory, that puts Mixon at a potential 12 touchdowns. Here were the Running Backs that scored 12 or more total touchdowns in 2020 and where they finished in PPR:
At 10+ touchdowns, that’s good company. Top 16 finish almost a lock with a strange outlier in Jeff Wilson sneaking in. At 12+ touchdowns, that’s elite company with only six running backs reaching those heights and, with the exception of Chubb who doesn’t catch many passes, a top 10 finish is in the bag.
Before you ask, 2019 looks similar. Nine running backs had 10+ touchdowns and eight of them finished in the top 14 (Mostert, another 49ers running back was the anomaly again). Seven running backs had 12+ touchdowns, with five of them in the top six (Gurley and Ingram were the other two finishing 14 and 11 respectively).
Market Share
I talked above about Mixon getting 30-percent of his team’s touchdowns but what about the workload generally. Here is Mixon’s market share (carries + targets) in the five full games he played in 2020:
That’s right, he got 37-percent of his team’s total opportunities during that five-week span. How does that compare to his peers (healthy games only)?
- Nick Chubb = 29-percent
- Austin Ekeler = 31-percent
- Aaron Jones = 31-percent
- Jonathan Taylor = 34-percent (in his dominant stretch)
- Antonio Gibson = 28-percent (in his dominant stretch)
Mixon blows most of them out of the water. What about the next tier up?
- Saquon Barkley = 39-percent (1 game only)
- Ezekiel Elliott = 32-percent
- Alvin Kamara = 31-percent
- Derrick Henry = 40-percent
- Dalvin Cook = 44-percent
- Christian McCaffrey = 38-percent
That’s a pretty favourable comparison with some of the more dominant backs in the league.
Summary
- Outside of 2020’s injury, he’s been RB13 or better since 2018
- When he plays 40-percent of snaps, he has a comparable number of RB1 and RB2 performances to his peers. When he plays 60-percent of snaps, he easily exceeds those thresholds
- If an RB scores 10 touchdowns (which he could easily do), they are almost guaranteed to finish as a high-end RB2; if an RB scores 12 touchdowns (very possible for him), it’s top-10
- He gets a higher market share of his team’s touches than all of the running backs being drafted around him and less than only three running backs last season
Tell me again why you don’t want to draft him at RB14?!
