Tag: Joe Mixon

Nation’s No. 1 running back in the class of 2024 officially signs with the Oklahoma Sooners

The Oklahoma Sooners add Taylor Tatum to the team after he officially signs his National Letter of Intent.

The [autotag]2024 early signing period[/autotag] is here, and the Oklahoma Sooners have received the signature from one of their most sought prospects. [autotag]Taylor Tatum[/autotag] is a five-star prospect and the nation’s top running back in the class of 2024.

Tatum could come in and immediately contribute to a running back room for Oklahoma that was up and down in 2023. He has a very similar playing style to former Sooners running back [autotag]Joe Mixon[/autotag].

He’s not as big as Mixon, though, listed at 5 feet, 11 inches and 205 pounds. He can help in the passing game as well as the running game. He’s also a dual sport athlete who is expected to play both football and baseball at Oklahoma.

Here is what Gabe Brooks, a national scouting analyst for 247Sports, had to say about Tatum:

Instinctive lane-finder. Plays with patience. Presses blocks to allow for holes to materialize. Also knows how to buy a couple more strides of time on perimeter runs to help blockers re-route defenders. Quick-footed in the hole. Regularly makes something out of nothing when penetration disrupts play in the backfield. – Brooks

More from the [autotag]2024 Early Signing Period[/autotag]

Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Jaron on Twitter @JaronSpor.

How Bengals head coach Zac Taylor made things easy for QB Jake Browning

The Bengals are rolling with backup quarterback Jake Browning, and that’s a tribute to how head coach Zac Taylor has made Browning comfortable with scheme.

When Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow suffered a season-ending wrist injury in his team’s 34-20 Week 11 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, it certainly looked as if the 5-5 Bengals’ season was over in a competitive sense. Replacing Burrow would be Jake Browning, a 2019 undrafted free agent out of Washington who had never thrown a regular-season pass before the 2023 season.

Clearly, the onus was on head coach Zac Taylor and his staff to make things as easy as possible for Browning by tailoring things to his preferences, and that’s what they did. The changes for their new quarterback weren’t extreme, but they were meaningful.

In Weeks 1-10, per Sports Info Solutions, the Bengals ranked 23rd in dropbacks with pre-snap motion. Since then, they rank 10th. They ranked 22nd in dropbacks with play-action. Since then, they rank 16th. They ranked 30th in passing snaps under center through Week 10. Since then, they rank 16th.

One play that combined motion, play-action, and under center was Browning’s 54-yard pass to running back Chase Brown against the Indianapolis Colts last Sunday. This pass was thrown four yards behind the line of scrimmage, so this was a lot about Brown, but the design made things difficult for the Colts. The Colts were in Cover-3, and safety Julian Blackmon ran with Jamarr Chase’s jet motion across. The under-center play-action froze linebackers Ronnie Harrison and Zaire Franklin, and cornerback Darrell Baker fell down when he tried to follow Brown’s delayed flare route. Not an explosive play from Browning’s arm per se, but you can tell that the Bengals’ coaching staff have gone out of their way to make Browning comfortable.

“I don’t know if it’s really been that different,” Taylor said of the new stuff. “They’re all things we’ve done over the course of the season. Each defense we play is a big driving force for how the game is played. We haven’t called a single play that we didn’t rep all training camp and fall. These guys believe in what we’re doing and have done a great job. We’ve really called upon every resource we have on offense, and everyone has stepped up. So many guys made catches and big plays today. We’re not afraid to use everybody on the roster that’s active. We have faith that everyone can step up and do their job.”

Browning has done just that, Browning is the second player since 1950 with a completion percentage of 70% or higher and a passer rating of 95.0 or higher in each of his first three career starts, joining Chad Pennington (first four starts, Weeks 5 and 7-9 in 2002 with the Jets). Browning has completed 79.3 percent of his attempts (69 of 87), the highest completion percentage by a quarterback in his first three career starts since 1950, surpassing Pennington (77.4 percent).

“I don’t look at him as a young guy,” Taylor said of Browning. “He’s been here now for three years — that’s old in this league. He knows what makes a really good backup quarterback. It’s being able to take the reps you’re not getting mentally, and manufacturing them in practice. Dan Pitcher does a great job with that. You’d handle him differently if he was a rookie or second year guy. I feel like we have a veteran quarterback out there, just getting his first action in front of a whole stadium. This is why we’ve given him the opportunity to compete for the job, this is why he won the job and this is why he stuck around for three years.

“A lot of times the guys on the practice squad, you just switch them out after two years. But Jake had all the intangible stuff, the skills we saw that made us think he can be an effective player for us. All he’s done is continue to prove that right. He knows the season doesn’t end today. He has to continue to stack and prepare. I’m sure we have another tough defense coming in next week with Minnesota. He has controlled what he can control at this point.”

Not that Browning is capable of just checkdown stuff. He hit receiver Tee Higgins with this 26-pass against the Colts in which Browning threw with good anticipation to hit Higgins in Indianapolis’ Cover-6 gaps. Browning was in the shotgun here, but his flash fake helped open things up downfield.

And this 76-yard touchdown pass to Ja’Marr Chase against the Jaguars in Week 13 shows that Browning can roll deep when Chase is the backside iso receiver.

The Bengals have a very tough matchup this Saturday against a Minnesota Vikings defense led by Brian Flores, and that defense will throw the entire playbook right at your head. But so far, Browning has proven able and capable in a system tailored to his skill set.

In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys get further into how Browning has kept the how 7-6 Bengals in the playoff race.

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You can watch this week’s “Xs and Os,” featuring all of Week 15’s biggest NFL matchups (including Bengals-Vikings) right here:

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You can listen and subscribe to the “Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…

…and on Apple Podcasts.

Fantasy Football: Waiver-wire targets for Week 15

The fantasy playoffs are here and you need to pick up the best players to help out your squad. We got you covered.

The fantasy playoffs are here for must of us and it’s time to buckle down and look at what was an exciting and interesting Week 14. Where we saw some new names enter into our collective fantasy football minds. Injuries and breakout stars are going to send fantasy managers scrambling to waivers this week, and we can fill you in on who to target before waivers clear.

Joe Mixon hyped for what rookie Chase Brown brings Bengals offense

Joe Mixon loves what he’s seeing from the rookie RB.

Veteran Cincinnati Bengals running back Joe Mixon is more than happy to see a younger member of the room stepping up big for the offense.

That honor goes to fourth-round rookie Chase Brown, who has seen a steady uptick in usage since returning from an injury.

Mixon says the addition of Brown to the mix can only help the offense — and that it’s something he wouldn’t mind seeing at other spots, too.

“It’s definitely cool. Chase is a young buck ready to get out there and show what he’s got,” Mixon said, according to Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com. “He’s stepped up in a major way. As long as everybody continues to do that in whatever position there is, I think we’ll be in great shape.”

Brown turned nine carries into 61 yards (6.8 average) during the Monday night win over Jacksonville last week.

While Mixon still had 19 carries during that game, it’s a pretty good sign that the rookie’s usage could only increase as the season concludes.

And as Mixon says, that could be one of the keys to still scrapping for a longshot playoff appearance with Joe Burrow out.

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Brian Callahan wants to find out what rookie Chase Brown can do

The Bengals sound ready to see more of an exciting rookie.

The Cincinnati Bengals season is not going as planned, and Joe Mixon picked up 16 yards on eight carries in their loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

In the fifth round of the draft earlier this year, the Bengals took Chase Brown out of Illinois so that he could be a backup for Mixon, who has been mostly reliable over his career in Cincinnati. But with his recent struggles, offensive coordinator Brian Callahan wants to get Brown more involved in the offense according to Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com.

“Chase had some plays in the game plan that were his that we didn’t get to,” Callahan said. “We need to find out what Chase can do for us because I don’t know. That’s the answer at this point. And we do need to find out.”

Chase had been on the injured reserve with a hamstring injury, so he has only been able to get two carries for six yards so far in his rookie season, but the Bengals are looking to try some new things after the offense had so much trouble in Week 12.

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Bengals players react to losing Joe Burrow

Reactions from the locker room to Joe Burrow’s injury.

The Cincinnati Bengals will be without quarterback Joe Burrow for the rest of the season after it was reported that he will need season-ending wrist surgery for the injury he suffered in the loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday night.

With Burrow playing as well as he has been, it was tough for teammates to grapple with the fact that they had lost such a big difference-maker. Before the team knew this would be a season-ending injury, they reacted after the game to what they hoped at the time was just a sprain.

“I didn’t know at all,” Joe Mixon said, according to Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com. “They were saying, ‘Where’s Joe?’ when we went out there before the end of the half and, sure enough, he wasn’t out there and after that it was what it was.

“When he went out, people were feeling a certain type of way, especially him because he’s such a competitor. But everyone still stuck in there and did what we could to fight.”

Mixon said he addressed the team after the game to try to keep spirits up.

“I’m a leader in this locker room and a captain for a reason. I’m here to do whatever I can to keep this ship here going and keep everybody together. I’m going to do my best, you know, do whatever I can, make that happen and build on this performance,” Mixon said. “I don’t know what direction that we’re going, but when it comes down to it, I mean, everybody, we did some good things today.”

Immediately after the game, Zac Taylor’s message was that the Bengals weren’t going to let the loss to the Ravens define them, and they would keep fighting the rest of the way, which they will now have to do with Jake Browning under center. He said the team wasn’t deflated after losing Burrow.

“Obviously when you lose your starting quarterback, it’s disappointing,” Taylor said. “That’s tough, but I’ve really felt like our guys knew that we were still in the game and kept fighting. Again, it just didn’t go our way. We didn’t put enough points on the board and didn’t find enough ways to keep points off the board.”

Browning said he was prepared to get onto the field because this is something he has to be prepared for every single game as the backup.

“Everyone is hoping that everyone stays healthy, but it is kind of my job to say, ‘Alright, what if (Burrow) gets hurt?’” Browning said after the loss. “I have to prepare like he is going to get hurt. So, for me, I think I kind of ran through that scenario. Before every game, I kind of think through that scenario, so when it does happen, it is not the first time it is all happening in my head.”

Boyd was disappointed in losing Burrow, but he said the team is prepared to move forward and he has confidence in Browning.

“It hurts a lot. He’s our best player,” Boyd said. “But we have to move forward with Jake. It’s a tough loss, a crucial loss. That’s the league. Backups win games all over the place … I’m sure we’ll adjust and make changes based on who’s playing and not playing.”

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Instant analysis, recap of Bills’ loss vs. Bengals in Week 9

Not the night the #Bills needed:

The Buffalo Bills lost to the Cincinnati Bengals, 24-18, in Week 9 action. The Bills fall to 5-4 on the season. More importantly, Buffalo is now 2-4 in AFC play.

The game started off with offensive fireworks. Cincinnati opened with a nine-play, 76-yard drive culminating with a perfect seven-yard pass from quarterback Joe Burrow to tight end Irv Smith to give the Bengals an early lead. Burrow was flawless on the drive, completing all five passes for 65 yards.

Buffalo responded in kind on their first offensive drive. Quarterback Josh Allen completed five-of-six passes for 83 yards. He finished the series with a two-yard touchdown scramble.

The Bengals took the lead once again on their next drive. Cincinnati drove 69 yards on 11 plays, finishing with a two-yard rush by rusher Joe Mixon. The Bengals ended the first quarter with a 14-7 lead.

The offensive explosion then settled down. Both teams traded punts. Both defenses were getting a bit of an upper hand at this point.

The Bengals forced the first turnover of the game. While under pressure, Allen tried to hit receiver Gabe Davis out on the sideline. Allen’s pass was too into the center of the field and was intercepted by defensive back Cam Taylor-Britt.

The Bengals were in an ideal spot to add to their lead. However, the Bengals moved in reverse on the drive, being flagged for four penalties. Cincinnati moved themselves out of scoring range and was forced to punt.

Cincinnati would respond later in the quarter. The Bengals strung together a seven-play drive in which Burrow did a tremendous job extending plays. Burrow ended the drive with a short pass to tight end Drew Sample. Sample would rumble 22 yards to put the Bengals up 21-7 going into halftime.

In the second half, the Bills offense found a bit of a rhythm on their initial drive of the second half. Buffalo used a pass-heavy approach to move the ball into Bengals territory. However, the drive stalled out, and Buffalo could only get three points out of the series. Kicker Tyler Bass connected on a 34-yard field goal to bring the Bills to a 21-10 deficit.

Buffalo’s defense kept the Bengals under wraps in the third quarter. The Bills offense looked like they could make another dent in the Bengals lead. However, Cincy linebacker Germaine Pratt forced a tight end Dalton Kincaid fumble, which stopped a promising Buffalo drive.

The Bengals had an opportunity to put the game out of reach midway through the fourth quarter. The Bills defense did just enough to keep the Bengals out of the end zone, and Cincinnati was forced to attempt a short field goal to bring the score to 24-10.

Buffalo kept things interesting with a 12-play, 75-yard drive. Allen did a great job extending plays and finding secondary options to keep the offense moving forward. Wideout Stefon Diggs won a one-on-one battle out wide and caught a 17-yard pass to pull the Bills within one score. Diggs added a two-point conversion to bring the deficit to six points.

But that’s as close as Buffalo would get. Their defense couldn’t make one more big stop after doing so numerous times and the Bengals took the 24-18 win.

Oklahoma Sooners receive commitment from 2026 4-Star RB Jonathan Hatton

The Oklahoma Sooners earned their first commitment of the 2026 recruiting cycle with a pledge from four-star running back Jonathan Hatton.

The Oklahoma Sooners recruiting efforts are ahead of schedule. On Tuesday, they earned their first commitment of the 2026 recruiting cycle from four-star running back [autotag]Jonathan Hatton[/autotag].

Oklahoma offered Hatton back in June after attending [autotag]Brent Venables[/autotag] football camp. He was back on campus at the end of July and then was in town for the Oklahoma Sooners beatdown of Iowa State this weekend.

Hatton is a consensus four-star running back prospect and someone who could see his profile rise even higher over the next three years. 247Sports, On3, and Rivals each consider him a top-80 prospect in the cycle and top 10 player in Texas for 2026.

The sophomore already has fantastic size for the running back position, standing 6-foot-1 and weighing 205 pounds.

He’s a runner who displays fantastic vision with great cut-back ability. He’s strong at the point of attack, willing to take on tacklers, and can often break through contact. Hatton also displays enough speed to get to the second level and take it the distance for a touchdown.

When you watch his highlights, his running style reminds you of running backs coach [autotag]DeMarco Murray[/autotag] and former Sooner great [autotag]Joe Mixon[/autotag]. Both were smooth runners with upright styles that can make people miss, as well as break tackles to pick up extra yards.

With the commitment the Sooners earned the pledge of one of the top players in the state of Texas.

Jonathan Hatton’s Recruiting Profile

Film

Hudl

Joe Mixon gives Bengals first lead of 2023 and fans loved it

Joe Mixon lifts the Bengals up with a big touchdown.

Cincinnati Bengals running back Joe Mixon gave his team its first lead of the 2023 season on Monday night with a 14-yard touchdown run.

The score only gave the Bengals a 13-9 advantage over the Los Angeles Rams in the third quarter — but it was a big deal for a team that entered the night 0-2 and had a tough go of it with Joe Burrow still playing on the hurt calf.

With the season on the line, fans were certainly loving the fact the team had finally earned its first lead in two 10 quarters of action.

Here’s a look at the play and fan reaction.

Bengals OL Cordell Volson gets major hype from Joe Mixon

More hype for Cordell Volson as he heads into a critical season.

Hype has steadily continued to grow for Cincinnati Bengals second-year guard Cordell Volson.

That includes praise from one Orlando Brown Jr., the guy Volson will line up next to on each play next season, health provided.

And now running back Joe Mixon has thrown out some notable praise too, as captured by Dan Hoard: “I’m a big fan of Cordell Volson, said Mixon. “I think he’s going to be around for a long time and I believe that as long as he’s on the right track and doing what he’s doing he’s a potential Hall of Famer.”

Volson was solid as a rookie and the Bengals didn’t do much to bring in competition at his spot, suggesting they certainly see the upside.

And the former NDSU product has certainly looked the part this summer, appearing bigger and more effective after a year in the system.

In other comments, Brown has also said he sees Pro Bowl potential in Volson. If the player and team have the right idea, the supposed weakest point on the line might not exactly be an unstable link in the chain.

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