My Last Thoughts About Mixon.

[CJD]

It's the exact same reason that Ray Rice was only suspended for a few games until the video came out.

People's natural instinct is to side with the person they think they know. You think you know Chad Johnson, you're sure the headbutt wasn't so bad. Or was exaggerated. Or was incidental. Or was framed for money. Or whatever. You give the athlete the benefit of the doubt because you don't want to feel guilty for liking the way they play a game you enjoy watching.

But once you see a video, it's hard to justify or excuse in your head. Especially when it was as vicious as Mixon's hit was on Molitor.

My wife remains adamant that every single football player cheats on their significant other (because they're on the road so much and the access to sex is unprecedented), so for her, she said it's surprising that people were so outraged that they could also hit women. I.E. they aren't good people, so why are you expecting them to do good things?

I think it is the fact that people inevitably look up to these players that they're so heart broken when they turn out to be flawed or bad in some way.

I am on the "may as well root for him" train, but then again, I've never been under the delusion that just because a person plays a sport for a team I like they must be some great person.

There does exist a group of people who are generally good but have done bad things before. I remember, when I was a teenager, about 14, I beat the hell out of a kid who was smaller than me. He was throwing snowballs at me and my friends and I warned him 4 times to stop. He didn't, so I walked up to him to intimidate him. He did the same and then punched me. I distinctly remember it not hurting, but I was angry. At the time, I thought "how dare this little shit try to act all tough with me. He isn't tough. I'll show him tough."

I slammed his face into the ground so hard he was bleeding from his mouth and his nose. He ran home crying. I may have broken his nose, I never saw him again, so I don't know.

As I am today, I would hope that, if that event were recorded, that I would not still have to answer it 13 years later.

Now, that isn't to say that I don't condemn what Mixon did. I condemn what I did too. Violence doesn't solve anything but, for young men who don't yet understand the consequences of their actions, it definitely feels like it can solve any problem.

I think Mixon has shown that he has learned his lesson and I hope he has no issues going forward. The good news, however, is if he does cause problems, he can easily be cut. Hell, they'll probably right some language into his contract stating that. As far as draft picks go, you can't argue with the high reward that Mixon offers. The Bengals decided, based on how he's behaved the last 3 years, that the risk was small enough to justify the reward, so they took him.

Worst case scenario, he relapses with his anger issues and we cut him. The equivalent of Margus Hunt never becoming a good player, as far as draft picks go. A 2nd round bust. They happen all the time.

I say give him a chance. I wasn't happy that we drafted him because I was tired of the Bengals being "that team" but now that he's here, let's at least reap the benefits of it. Because we're already suffering the PR nightmare everyone knew would come with Mixon where ever he went.