Fact Check: Is Texans RB Joe Mixon Out For the Season?

Joe Mixon has been one of the most productive running backs of the last decade, stacking up more than 7,000 rushing yards, 60 rushing touchdowns, and over 2,000 receiving yards since entering the league in 2017.

Even in his first year with the Texans last year, after arriving via trade from the Bengals, he put up 1,325 yards from scrimmage and 12 total touchdowns. So when a player with that resume disappears from the offseason, misses OTAs, minicamp, training camp, and then hasn’t taken a single snap in 2025, it’s natural for fans to wonder what exactly is going on.

Initially, most assumed the answer to this question was simple: Joe Mixon was recovering from the foot injury that placed him on the reserve injury list in late August.

For months, that was the only plausible explanation because there was no updates or timelines available amid complete radio silence from the Texans. And perhaps this silence is exactly what made Thursday’s report explode the way it did.

Claim: Joe Mixon is out for the season due to his leg injury.

Source of the Claim: The claim was made by NFL Insider Ian Rapoport in his report, who posted an update on X. “Sources: #Texans RB Joe Mixon is not expected to play this season as he deals with a foot injury from the offseason. Mixon likely remains on the PUP list through the season,” he tweeted.

Given Rapoport’s track record and credibility, the report immediately gained traction and was widely reported as a fact by various publications. But that’s not the case in reality.

Verdict: False.

Joe Mixon himself shot down the report, as he quote-tweeted Rapoport’s post and wrote, “Now, I get everyone’s looking for splash news & clickbait… but I’m just curious, Ian how do you know more about me than me? @peterjschaffer get yo mans bro.”

Perhaps Rapoport’s sources were from the Texans facility, who may be internally expecting the RB to not play again this year. But evidently, Joe Mixon does not agree that his season is over, and he wants no part of the narrative that his 2025 campaign had already ended.

That said, interestingly, Texans GM Nick Caserio recently addressed the situation on Sports Radio 610, and his comments aligned with neither Rapoport’s certainty nor Mixon’s defiance.

Instead, Caserio called Mixon’s recovery “a very gray situation,” noting that there were moments of progress and moments where everything “kind of stalled.” He added that players in Joe Mixon’s situation “are on the reserve list until they’re not,” and emphasized that he does not want to create false expectations this late in the season.

In other words, the Texans haven’t ruled him out, but they also haven’t ruled him in. The picture is murky, incomplete, and still changing, which is why Mixon’s pushback matters because even the front office doesn’t have a definitive answer yet.

So is Joe Mixon out for the season? As of today, the claim is false. Until the Texans reactivate him or officially shut him down, anything beyond that is speculation, not fact.