Myles Garrett is held to no sacks and other bold predictions for Week 1 vs. Browns
- The revamped offensive line holds Myles Garrett to zero sacks
- Not as much offense as we thought
- Big day for Mixon
- Welcome to the show, rook!
Joe Mixon rushes for 100+ yards
While the veteran running back had a down year last season, he did post his second-best performance of the year against the Browns at home, rushing for 96 yards on 14 carries. On the flipside, in their Halloween night matchup in Cleveland, Mixon only rushed for 27 yards on eight carries and hasn't gone for over 100 yards against them since 2019.
Despite this, and zooming out further from this standalone game and looking at the rest of the upcoming season in general, the seventh-year pro will bounce back after he has his worst season, as he has more pressure on him to perform now than ever before.
After all, Mixon was risking being waived if he didn't take a significant pay cut this off-season, and the drafting of Chase Brown-- despite admittedly being a little disappointing in the preseason-- is looming over his shoulder as a potential replacement, not to mention if either Trayveon Williams or Chris Evans takes a step forward.
We've seen a lot of running backs come out of nowhere and have great seasons as of late, who's to say either of those guys won't be the next one to do so?
With all these factors in mind, I predict Mixon, who was a regular 1,000-yard, 4.0+ yards per carry runner before 2022, will have a 'revenge tour', and that tour will start in Cleveland. Their rush defense was abysmal last year, giving up the sixth-most yards.
Looking back at the transactions they made during the off-season, only one sticks out that might help them fix this glaring flaw. That being the signing of former Viking Dalvin Tomilson, who is an effective piece against the run.
Still, we don't know if that'll be enough to turn things around, so I put my money on Mixon starting the 2023 season off with a bang and breaking that 100+ yard mark in Cleveland.