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By now, Cincinnati Bengals fans don’t need much of a reminder of that critical play in Super Bowl LVI that featured Samaje Perine while Joe Mixon watched from the sidelines.
Bengals head coach Zac Taylor explained why Perine got the run on third-and-short while Mixon watched from afar (the attempt failed, then a Joe Burrow pass was incomplete on fourth down), but we never heard from the star running back himself.
Until now.
Paul Dehner Jr. of The Athletic caught Mixon’s first conversation with the media since before the Super Bowl and he said the following when asked about it:
“At the end of the day, whoever is out there I have no doubt in my mind that they should make the play. Coach got caught up in running two-minute and through the playoffs, he had me in two-minute. It was a caught-up-in-the-moment thing. I really should have took initiative on myself and just been like, ‘Hey, I’m coming in.’ It was the heat of the moment. Third down, third-and-1, obviously I want to run in, but when we are going no-huddle we got to hurry up and keep it going. It sucks. Obviously, I know I would have been able to help and do whatever to get that 1 yard, but it’s over with, it’s last year, and we are in 2022. We are trying to do whatever we can do to repeat and get right back in that same situation. And when we are in that situation, you damn sure know I’ll be in.”
It’s a measured response from Mixon in the face of pretty much everyone agreeing that the highly paid star running back would have given the team the best chance to convert, if not win the whole thing.
But as Mixon stresses at the end of his inevitable back-and-forth on this topic, he’s already turning the page and aiming to help the team get back.
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