Joe Mixon
- Q1 - C-
- Q2 - C+
Mixon has improved from his lethargic start to the season, but we haven't seen enough. This team needs to figure it out in the run game, especially with Chase out with a hip injury for at least their Week 9 matchup vs. the Panthers.
Mixon's yards per carry average has shot up from 2.7 to 4.4 from the first quarter to the second and, while that is promising, it's still not enough to establish a solid run game, as he is yet to cross the 100-yard mark in a game this season or score multiple touchdowns. The effort is there, don't get me wrong, he's been doing his best to get past the line of scrimmage, but he isn't making people miss like he did during his Pro Bowl season in 2021.
I still think it's entirely too early to write his extension off as a mistake, but Mixon's performance during the second half of the season will be crucial to a lost and inconsistent offense, and we're going to need a big spike from him these last nine games if this team sees itself playing football well into January.
Ja'Marr Chase
- Q1 - B
- Q2 - A
Halloween's miserable outing goes to show how much this offense already misses Chase, as it took them until the fourth quarter to score when the game was well out of reach.
Besides a pedestrian game against the Ravens, Chase looked great through the second quarter. Unfortunately, just as things were heating up for him, coming off two games where he combined for 260 yards and four touchdowns, he goes down with a hip injury. The good news is, there's a chance he could be back after the bye vs. the Steelers on Sunday Night Football. Bad news, we still got at least one more game of watching this offense trying to operate without him.
From what we saw in Weeks 5-7, especially the latter two, Chase has looked more explosive than he did to begin the season, and hopefully, that trend continues once he returns from his injury, whenever that will be. Chase had one bad performance and followed it up with two outstanding ones to more than make up for it, so I'll give him an A after the second quarter, even if he missed the one against the Browns. Not that he could control that.