Philadelphia Eagles Draft: 5 Below The Radar First Round Prospects
Joe Mixon, RB, Oklahoma
This is a tough one. Let’s just walk it through.
In 2014, Mixon punched a fellow student, Amelia Molitor, and received a misdemeanor charge. He was suspended from the Oklahoma football program for one year.
Two years later, in 2016, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled that the footage of the incident had to be released to the public. Instead of waiting, Mixon’s lawyers released the footage themselves, in an effort to help put the case to rest. Given the violent nature of the footage, questions regarding Mixon’s character, risk level as a prospect, and draftable round have arisen. If you want to learn more about the case, here’s a good spot to get started.
On the field, Mixon is a Top-10 talent. Kyle Crabbs, Director of Scouting at NDTScouting, dropped this l’il nugget:
That’s hefty praise. And Dallas Cowboys RB Ezekiel Elliott is ranked low. Bonus.
However, Mixon has clearly demonstrated off-the-field character concerns that will make every team think twice–or three, or four, or five times–about drafting him. Especially given the heightened awareness of domestic violence and violence toward women in today’s NFL, Mixon’s case is particularly charged, and thereby particularly tricky to sort out.
People who punch women shouldn’t get paid millions of dollars. Simple as that. But the fact of the matter remains that in 2014, Mixon made a mistake, the university doled out his punishment, he accepted it, and it seems he has tried to move forward.
The video was just recently released, and it’s bad–it’s terrible. It’s downright awful. But nobody can assume that Mixon isn’t sincerely contrite and earnestly repenting without sitting down with him, talking to him, and coming to their own conclusion.
That’s what every team will do if they’re at all willing or interested in taking on a player of questionable character. They’ll interview him, and they’ll figure out whether or not they believe he truly represents the values they’d like to champion in their organization.
Mixon did something downright despicable. But if he worked in a profession further from the public eye, his occupational future wouldn’t be so much in question. If a team believes in his progression as a person and is willing to take the risk, they can–and should–draft him. He deserves an opportunity to show that he is more than his mistakes. We all do.
Will the Philadelphia Eagles be that team? I don’t know. They don’t have much of a history drafting character concern players, and Joe Douglas strikes me as the sort of blue-collar guy who might immediately take Mixon off of his board. But Mixon is a doggone talented football player, and if he expresses sincere contrition and transformation, the Eagles should select him in the first round.