Joe Mixon's debut with Texans will make Bengals feel terrible about trading him

The Cincinnati Bengals had trouble getting anything going on offense during their 16-10 season-opening loss to the New England Patriots, especially on the ground. As a team, the Bengals had a total of just 70 rushing yards against New England. Zack Moss had 44 of those yards, Chase Brown had 11 and Joe Burrow added 15 of his own.

The loss can't be pinned on the backfield as the entire team struggled, and one game isn't a large enough sample size to make any sort of sweeping indictment on the unit as a whole. But the Bengals will absolutely need more production from their running backs moving forward if they want the offense to reach its full, lofty potential.

The team's decision to trade Joe Mixon to the Houston Texans over the offseason and replace him with a combination of Moss and Brown was heavily questioned, and let's just say that the early returns don't look great for Cincinnati's front office.

Mixon doubled the production of Cincinnati's backfield in his Texans debut

While the Bengals struggled to get the ground game going in Mixon's absence, Mixon had an absolutely monster performance in his first game in a Texans uniform. On a whopping 30 carries Mixon tallied 159 yards and a touchdown. He also caught three passes for 19 yards.

For those doing the math, Mixon more than doubled the production of Cincinnati's backfield against New England in his Texans debut. Ironically enough, Mixon's first rushing touchdown in Houston was the 50th of his career -- a milestone he left Cincinnati one shy of hitting.

Mixon certainly looks like he still has plenty of gas left in the tank, and he appears to be fitting into his new home very well. Meanwhile. there were questions about Cincinnati's backfield heading into the season, and the first game did little to answer those questions.

Sure, it's just the first week and things could change moving forward, but so far Cincinnati's decision to move on from Mixon isn't looking great.