Texans Joe Mixon gets fined for something he didn't even say

Joe Mixon has been hit with a fine by the NFL for criticizing officials following the Houston Texans loss to the Kansas City Chiefs.

Mixon said after the loss, which had several questionable calls go against Houston, that "Everybody know how it is playing up here. You can never leave it into the refs hands. The whole world see, man."

That doesn't seem too harsh, but then again, it's also not the quote he was fined for. Instead, the league fined him $25,000 for saying "Why play the game if every 50/50 call goes with Chiefs. These officials are trash and bias.”

READ MORE: DeMeco Ryans subtly shades officials following Texans loss to Chiefs

The only problem is that Mixon never said that. It was actually former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh who said that in a tweet.

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk believes the league was mistaken by an SI.com article that quoted both Mixon and Houshmandzadeh. He also says Mixon's original quote wasn't mentioned in the fine letter, since it wasn't harsh enough to receive a punishment.

Florio also calls on the league to rescind the fine and apologize to Mixon for their mistake which is "more boneheaded than most bad calls."

Texans have plenty of reasons to be upset over bad calls

While Mixon didn't make the comment that drew the ire of the NFL, the Texans have every right to be upset.

The officials were guilty of multiple bad calls that aided the Chiefs in the Divisional Round. This isn't to say the only reason Kansas City won is because of those calls, but it didn't help.

Houston struggled with pass protection and they couldn't come up with key stops down the stretch. But that doesn't take away the sting from a phantom roughing call or a late hit penalty when it was Patrick Mahomes who was late to slide.