The Seattle Seahawks decided not to sign Joe Mixon after bringing him in for a quick workout and physical in the Pacific Northwest. The move leaves him unsigned for now, and it comes after a year on the shelf recovering from a severe foot injury.
That is why Joe Mixon news is moving now. Seattle needed help in a backfield that has been thinned by free agency and injury, but the club still stopped short of a deal after seeing him in person. Mixon, 30, is not some unknown tryout body. He was a Pro Bowl back in 2021, won the AFC rushing title with 1,168 yards in 2018 and had a 1,000-yard Pro Bowl campaign with the Houston Texans in 2024.
He also carried a long résumé with the Cincinnati Bengals, who made him a second-round pick in 2017. Mixon helped them reach Super Bowl LVI and threw a six-yard touchdown pass to Tee Higgins in that game. But his path to this point has been shaped as much by what happened away from the field as by what happened on it. In 2014, video showed him punching Amelia Molitor and breaking four bones in her face, and Oklahoma suspended him for the season before he later entered an Alford plea and was ordered to complete 100 hours of community service.
The later chapters did not disappear. In 2023, Mixon faced a misdemeanor aggravated-menacing charge in connection with a road-rage incident in Cincinnati, then was found not guilty at trial. In March 2023, a teenager playing a Nerf game near his home was shot by his sister's boyfriend, and authorities did not charge Mixon in that case. The victim's family sued Mixon and the alleged shooter, and that lawsuit was settled in 2025.
The sharp edge in this decision is that Seattle looked anyway. The Seahawks were willing to examine whether Mixon could still help, but after the physical they passed, and the reasons were not made public. That leaves one practical reading: the team did not see enough to move now, even with a depleted backfield and a proven runner available. Mixon is set to start on the practice squad to work into shape, but for the Seahawks the answer for Monday was no, not yet.
