Thursday morning links and notes -- Palmer's confidence is low and people making up trade rumors should go away... forever

On my way home, I listened to Lance McAlister and his buddy Dave Lapham, talking about Carson Palmer's elbow. Significantly approached, Lapham talked about Palmer's "pitch count" with his injury; which is 40 tosses during the week, and 50 during the game. Likely, he said, this will last the entire season. However, very telling, was Palmer's admission after the game that he doesn't have the confidence to throw the football deep. "Balls I normally zip right by somebody, I felt maybe there's a chance they get their hands on it or make a play on it."

Furthermore, it doesn't appear that this will be healed or fixed during the season, but should be fine with limited (if any) work during the week to rest for Sundays.

There was a "report" going around that the San Francisco 49ers are interested in acquiring T.J. Houshmandzadeh. What's it based on? Well, apparently there's talk about Houshmandzadeh in San Francisco, where Mike Martz is the offensive coordinator, close friends to Ken Zampese, the Bengals quarterback. Blah, blah, blah. If I had a dime for each person that stated an unsubstantiated report/rumor...

Lewis points out the obvious: "What club in its right mind would trade for a player that's going to be an unrestricted free agent? If you're going to start a rumor, make it a good one. Make it something that would make some sense."

Chad Johnson says lay off Bob Bratkowski. More on Chad:

"My ankle's fine, my shoulder's fine, but for those who don't know why I'm not getting the ball, I have my own little philosophy on what's going on. And I broke it down like this: Never, ever, ever, ever go against the monster, because the monster always wins. Get it? So y'all put that in your own perspective and you'll understand where I'm coming from and why things are going the way it's going right now. OK, what else you want to talk about?"

David takes a look at the offense beyond this season.

Marvin Lewis says the Bengals need to run the ball better and stop big plays. Really?

Jay muses at the irony that the Bengals have reversed roles over 2007 -- now we have a serviceable defense and a game-losing offense.

Jets head coach Eric Mangini talked about the Bengals for four minutes during Wednesday's press conference. Probably safe to say that Mangini isn't taking the Bengals lightly.