Joe Mixon's status in Cincinnati has been a hot topic all summer, with rumors swirling that the Bengals could move on given his hefty contract.
But the running back told SI's All Bengals reporter Elise Jesse during an interview at his youth camp he's not fretting about the speculation, citing his relationship with owner Mike Brown as the reason he's confident he won't be going anywhere this season, Kevin Patra of NFL.com reports.
"You hear a lot of noise, but when you don't pay attention and you don't hear it, none of that affects you," Mixon said, via SI's All Bengals. "What matters most is Mike Brown. He always comes up to me at practice and he's always happy to see me and that is the best feeling. It doesn't get better than that."
Added Mixon: "He's the owner, and he makes the decisions, and he embraced me since day one and I love Mike and I know Mike loves me too, so that's a great thing to have. I feel like our front office, everybody is great to me, and everybody has backed me 100%, and it's a great feeling to have the love and support that I get from them continuously. Words really don't explain how much that means to me."
Mixon is slated to count $12.79 million against the salary cap in 2023. With no guaranteed money left on his base salary, the Bengals could save more than $10 million by releasing the running back at this point.
It's possible the Bengals could squeeze Mixon to take a pay cut before Week 1.
"They're entitled to their own opinions," Mixon said when asked about questions regarding a potential pay cut. "Sometimes it gets annoying, but at the same time, they're not me, so how could they understand? I just try to do everything I can and this year, I'll continue to prove why I belong and why they signed me to what they did, you know? I'm very excited and very optimistic about this year as a whole in terms of what I think the Cincinnati Bengals is going to bring to the table."
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