Joe Mixon Wins Appeal of NFL Fine for Criticizing Refs

Joe Mixon successfully got a $25,000 fine from the NFL league office overturned.

The Houston Texans running back was initially fined Jan. 22 for saying, according to the NFL’s letter informing him of the fine, “Why play the game if every 50/50 call goes with Chiefs. These officials are 🗑🗑🗑🗑 & bias.”

The only issue: Mixon never said it.  

Those words are from a post on X by former NFL wide receiver and current Fox Sports analyst T.J. Houshmandzadeh. Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk attributed the NFL’s mixup to an SI.com post that quoted both Houshmandzadeh’s tweet and Mixon’s actual comments after the Texans’ season-ending 23-14 loss to the Chiefs on Jan. 18.

“Everybody know how it is playing up here,” Mixon said at the time. “You can never leave it into the refs’ hands. The whole world see, man.”

The NFL later corrected its letter to include Mixon’s actual comment, but kept the fine in place. Mixon ripped the league’s decision in a post on his own X account.

The fine was finally rescinded Tuesday after Mixon’s appeal, which sent the case to a hearing, was upheld by NFL hearing officer Chris Palmer.

“During the appeal hearing, you stated what you meant by your statements referring to the officials,” Palmer wrote in a letter announcing the decision Tuesday. “As you know, statements can be interpreted differently by every individual and it seems like you clearly understand the weight and detriment of public criticism towards officials can be… After reviewing the totality of the evidence, I find that you did not necessarily publicly criticize the officials. Accordingly for the reasons set forth above, the NFL will rescind the $25,000 fine amount.”

Mixon was one of several prominent Texans to take similar veiled swipes at the referees after the loss, including defensive end Will Anderson and head coach DeMeco Ryans. A roughing-the-passer penalty handed to Anderson after a tackle of Patrick Mahomes during the game drew criticism from several onlookers, including ESPN’s Troy Aikman on the game broadcast.

“We knew going into this game that it was us versus everybody,” Ryans said after the game when asked about the officiating. He was not fined for those remarks.

Anderson was fined $25,000, however, for saying something similar to Ryans that day, but specifically singling out the officials.

“We knew it was going to be us versus the refs going into this game,” Anderson told reporters.

Like Mixon, Anderson appealed his fine, and that appeal was also successful.