Is Joe Mixon The Starting Running Back For The Texans When He Returns?

by John Johnson

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Will Joe Mixon start for the Houston Texans when he returns? John breaks down the Joe Mixon return timeline for Week 9 and fantasy football outlook.

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2. Joe Mixon Fantasy Football Outlook

3. Who Should I Start Tool

5. More Fantasy Football Analysis

Houston Texans running back Joe Mixon (ankle, foot) still hasn't played a game at all this season. Eight weeks in, he remains on injured reserve.

It remains a mystery why he even got hurt in the first place. While his production slowed down toward the end of last season, he didn't have any major injury to end the year. And even if he had suffered something like an ankle sprain or broken foot, you'd think it would have been healed by now.

But there are no signs of him returning. We still haven't had an update on his return timetable, how healthy he might be when and if he does return, the specifics of his injury, or how he ended up in this situation. And will he even be the starter when he returns? Let's dive in.

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Will Joe Mixon Start For The Texans When He Returns?

Who knows? Seriously, this is an incredibly difficult question to answer. Perhaps the better question is will he even play again this season? The Texans are intentionally being coy about his health issues right now. It seems that they want to hide the true nature of his injury.

It obviously wasn't suffered during a game, but the best information we have right now is just a set of rumors that we can't prove. We could dive into a few. The first is that he suffered some kind of fracture in his foot or ankle while training in the spring. Seems like we would have heard about that at the time, though.

#texans RB Joe Mixon's ankle injury is a big deal.
- He'll miss AT LEAST 4 games
- There has been very little information
- He has a lot of tread on the tires. Among active RBs, only King Henry has more career carries.
- Houston has a new OC and revamped OL
- play action game…

— James Palmer (@JamesPalmerTV) August 26, 2025

The fact that he started on the non-football injury list probably isn't super revealing. It just means he didn't suffer the aliment during an NFL game or practice at minimum, though it can mean that the injury was unrelated to football.

There's a rumor circulating that he had an unapproved procedure done on his foot that didn't go well and had serious complications. It's possible that he could, at some point, need a further, actually-approved surgery to fix that issue, or that he's at least dealing with some aliment that can't be surgically corrected right now.

Surgery isn't a silver bullet and can't solve every issue to someone's bones, ligaments, joints, and tendons. The Texans themselves have called the situation "complicated", and many sources expressed doubt early on that he'd play at all this year.

Joe Mixon 2024 highlights continued! 💥

Dude played his heart out in every start. Let’s get some improvement on the interior offensive line and then I don’t know how he will be stopped 🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/dnd6zOnUFm

— big ounce (@_bigounce) February 13, 2025

When Mixon was playing last season, it didn't seem like he was dealing with anything major. He missed time with a high-ankle sprain last year, but came back and appeared to run well. An aggravation of that wouldn't make sense, as a full high-ankle sprain would take less time to recover from.

It's overall a very frustrating situation right now, and it's hard to make sense of it. Even if he does return, it's worth questioning what his role will actually be. It's safe to say that even if he is listed as the starter, we could see an ugly three-way committee between Mixon, Nick Chubb, and Woody Marks.

Another strong possibility is that he injured himself away from football and has been rehabbing on his own. It could be a HIPAA violation for the team to comment on it, because it's not related to football. This is a bit less conspiratorial than an unapproved surgery, and pretty reasonable overall.

For now, though, I'd lean towards him not getting the starting job when he returns. There's first place on the depth chart and there's actually getting the bulk of the touches, and I don't think Mixon will get the bulk of the touches right away when and if he returns.

Joe Mixon Fantasy Football Outlook

There might not be any outlook this year. A downgraded version of last year makes sense, though -- he's been heavily used as a workhorse back in his career and his body has taken a beating. He slowed down quite a bit toward the end of last season. It's unclear if his body can handle such workloads moving forward.

Joe Mixon in his first 7 games:
-151 carries for 655 yards (4.33 YPC)

Joe Mixon in his last 7 games:
-94 carries for 361 yards (3.8 YPC)

Bobby Slowik: fired

Texans new OC: Rams passing game coordinator

Texans new signing: RB Nick Chubb

Fading Mixon at ADP pic.twitter.com/aKa6bYVOmD

— JohnJohn Analysis (@JohnJohnalytics) June 17, 2025

In hindsight, fading Mixon at ADP made sense, but not just because of the injury. He seems like he would have ended up losing work late in the year to both Chubb and Marks. Last year, former Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik used Mixon excessively and his efficiency tanked as a result.

In many leagues, there's not much cost to keeping him in an injured reserve slot, so you might as well for now. But if you have another player that needs to take up his IR spot, he can be safely dropped. You should worry about actually getting to the playoffs first.

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