It’s tough to be specific about keeper leagues when writing about them. There are so many unique keeper leagues out there. It seems like every keeper question that I answer in the comment section has a different format than another one. I think that the best way to write about keeper prospects is to make it round specific and leave it up to you to analyze it’s usefulness to you.

Joe Mixon as a keeper is definitely a conversation starter. There are people on the polar opposite sides of opinion when it comes to Mixon’s future production. Then there are analysts like myself that take it year to year on Mixon. Most of the time, it comes down to what kind of value I’m getting and what kind of pieces that he has around him.

Joe Mixon was drafted in the early to middle of the 2nd round in 12-team leagues last season. Drafters who were sweet on Mixon figured that his skill set would lead to the sky being the limit for him, which I totally understand. Mixon was coming off of a top-10 PPR finish in 2018 and heading in the right direction going into this season.

I had no interest in Mixon going into 2019. I figured he’d be spending a lot of time running into a brick wall behind a bad offensive line in a bad offense that was trending towards missing A.J. Green for an extended period of time. For the first half and for the final results of the season, I was correct to fade him. Mixon finished as the PPR RB17. I took an internal victory lap instead of being a savvy fantasy player and did not buy low on Mixon in any of my leagues.

I hope you did, because from weeks 10-16, Joe Mixon was the PPR RB6. After not scoring in the Bengals’ first 11 games, Mixon score 5 touchdowns (although 2 in week 17) in their final 5 games. Over the last half of the season, Mixon started finding room to run finishing up the year with four 100 yard rushing games in the 2nd half.

Mixon’s 2nd half of the year has juiced his early ADP to the 6th RB taken and 14th overall in 2020. So that’s pretty much the same area that he was going in 2019. Mixon is going ahead of Aaron Jones, Ezekiel Elliott, and Derrick Henry. I’m not sure how I feel about that yet and I’m sure that things will change a lot.

But I suppose you can make the argument that THIS will be the year for Mixon. It sounds like Joe Burrow is fine with being drafted by the Bengals, and after the Bengals likely draft him, I think that offense gets a lot better. The offensive line was very bad last season, but it does have a couple of nice pieces and Cordy Glenn will be back in 2020. Joe Mixon is also heading into a contract year which adds to his incentive to have a big year. Mixon also doesn’t have a known threat to take touches away from him.

On the other side of the coin, Mixon has finished as a top 10 PPR back once in his entire career. As I previously mentioned, he failed to do anything in the first half of the season in 2019. There is a very real possibility that this can happen again in 2020 with a new QB under center. There isn’t much else in this offense for defenses to focus on.

As far as keeper leagues go, you might be able to do better depending on your roster and how many players that you can keep. But there is a very real possibility that you can’t. Mixon is a very talented back. Whether he’s the 6th best fantasy back is up for debate, but the potential is definitely there. I would personally rather find some value on someone you’re getting better round or dollar value on. I know ADP or auction dollar value isn’t the only way to gauge whether you should keep a player or not. But for Mixon’s price, there is still too much bust potential baked into the price.

Keeper Value: Room Temperature