INDIANAPOLIS -- One player who was not among the 330 invited to the Combine is Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon. Mixon is a talented player but was arrested for punching a woman before his time with the Sooners even began back in 2014. The video of that incident became public recently and the NFL decided not to invite him to Indy as a result.
Some teams – and the Patriots could very well be one – will remove him from their draft boards as the league is trying to repair its sullied image in regard to violent acts against women. Others may want the chance to speak with Mixon and try to understand if he's a person who displays remorse or if he's simply a lost cause, but they won't get that chance at the Combine and that didn't sit well with Detroit general manager Bob Quinn.
Quinn, who is in his second season with the Lions after a long career in the Patriots personnel department, expressed disappointment with the league's decision.
"Yeah, we're going to leave the door open on Joe. I think it's really disappointing that Joe's not here," Quinn said on Wednesday. "We come here to see the best college football players in college football. So there's 330-340 some-odd players here and for him not being here because of those issues, personally I don't think that's real fair because we have a lot of investigation that we want to do on him. To get him in one spot for all the teams would have been great.
"I'm not part of those decisions about how guys are chosen, but I think it is a disappointment that guys like him, and there are a few others you can put in that category, that we're going to be chasing around in the months of March and April and it's really unfair to the players, to be honest with you. So the door's open and I'd like to be able to get down, get a chance to sit down with the people that know Joe or Joe and kind of see what the circumstances were around the incident. He is still on our draft board, yes."
