Way, way back in August last year, the NFL world was greeted with some puzzling news wrapped in a touch of mystery. Then-Houston Texans running back Joe Mixon was expected to miss the first four weeks of the 2025-26 NFL season owing to an undisclosed foot injury.
Between then and now, July 2026, we’ve seen a whole NFL season unfold, one that ended with the Seattle Seahawks beating the New England Patriots to win the Super Bowl. But curiously, we’ve still not heard a peep about what happened to Joe Mixon.
That puzzle was solved on Tuesday, July 21, with an update from Aaron Wilson.
Is Joe Mixon’s NFL Career Over?
Wilson had a pretty important update to report this week on the man whose injury turned into a pretty interesting little side note in the 2025-26 NFL season.
“He [Mixon] has not filed his retirement papers,” Wilson reported. “He has told former teammates from the Bengals that his career is over. I had a source close to
Joe tell me recently there’s some hope, but I think it’s probably over.”
Mixon spent the first seven seasons of his career with the Cincinnati Bengals and was subsequently traded to Houston, where he turned into a fantasy football darling, racking up 1,016 yards and 11 touchdowns on 245 carries. To those numbers, he added 36 catches for 309 yards and another score.
He finished that campaign with a PFSN RB Impact score of 76.4, good enough for 20th in the NFL.
That electric campaign also saw him conferred with the second Pro Bowl selection of his career. Naturally, the hope was that he would carry that form into the next season.
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Alas, after being initially ruled out of the first four weeks, Mixon wasn’t seen for the entirety of the season, owing to the mysterious leg injury. That problem initially cost him the entirety of training camp, but there was no looking back from there.
Rumors later emerged that the RB had dropped a weight on his leg, which led to further complications.
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Before being let go by the Texans, head coach DeMeco Ryans dropped the slightest hint that he would not feature in the franchise’s plans for the future.
“We’re rolling with the guys that are here. That’s the main thing,” Ryans said. “We miss Joe, miss his energy, and his enthusiasm and everything he brought to our team. We continue to press forward and hope he’s doing well.”
Mixon was eventually released by the Texans in March this year. He was due a salary of $8 million for 2026. However, that sum was not guaranteed, which means Houston had that cap space to work with.
They chose to replace Mixon’s production by trading for former Detroit Lions running back David Montgomery, with Woody Marks set to serve as his backup.
