Mailbag: Was Mike Brown A Genius For Trading Carson Palmer Or Just Lucky?

Of course he was lucky…I can’t imagine any combination of circumstances coming together for one particular team the way this happened for us anytime again soon. Any one of those variables out of place and Carson is still sitting on his sofa right now.

BUT, there also wasn’t any other circumstance that could have gotten such a high price for Carson. If Mike Brown is the only owner/GM that wouldn’t have traded Carson Palmer sooner, then Mike Brown is the only owner/GM who could have gotten 2 first round picks for him at the trade deadline. You can feel how you like about that…it’s not the most comforting thought…but it’s the truth. And the bigger truth is that Mike Brown’s stubbornness could have just made this team a force in the AFC for the next decade. I don’t know about you, but I could forgive a whole lot of Akilii Smiths and David Klinglers for a Lombardi trophy or two. Maybe, just maybe, it took MB about 20 years to hit his stride. To be fair, he put together a championship caliber team in 2005. That talent was in place for a few more years. Let’s say 5 years from now Andy Dalton is polishing a Super Bowl ring and on his way to a few more. You could argue that half of Mike Brown’s tenure was actually fairly successful.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit…

Imagine the adjectives if mb rejected offer….

but it was his patience that allowed him to make this deal. as others have noted, if brown doesn’t take the stance he did, most other GM would have traded him in the offseason for maybe a fourth round pick! He had nothng to lose and everything to gain. If he waits till the offseason, he trades him to someone (maybe the raiders anyway) for prob a 2nd, and another pick. Or the waits till a QB gets hurt (which happens every year) and holds that GM for ransom and gets what he did.

He played the game smart and got the big prize instead of settling

After the 2011 draft occured about the best you could have expected for Palmer were future draft picks. Sure they could have traded him for a player and picks but their history of trading player for player is sketchy at best. So until the 2012 draft happens Palmer had some value. Lord Brown did not have to make a move till then. That was the genious part. The lucky part was the series of events that happened to the Raiders, and the timing of those events. Less then two days before the trading dead line their starting QB goes down thus creating a need lucky was Hue Jackson being in charge with the void involved with the passing of Al Davis. Hue seems to be the biggest living Palmer fan.

1. A Highly Improbable Series of Events: not just Campbell getting hurt, but the fact that it happened right before the trade deadline, to a team that hasn’t been competitive in a while and is desperate to win now, Garrard announcing that he needed surgery (thus removing their most affordable option), the emotional resolve created by Al Davis’ passing, Pryor being unable to practice with the team until recently, etc. This is like a Rube Goldberg contraption, or Mousetrap.

2. Mike Brown being willing to make a spectacularly-beneficial deal. This is new territory for him, after his failure to say “yes” to the Ricky Williams trade and the 2008 Chad trade. I do believe our little senior citizen is finally growing up.

3. The freaky omen/sacrifice value created by all those Bengal tigers that were killed in Ohio, this week. Multiple Bengal tigers killed = Carson magically traded. Between this and lightning striking Touchdown Jesus, I think those Supernatural guys need to visit Ohio and see what’s going on.

Ryan Fitzpatrick about to sign a $10 million/year contract? Seriously? I love what Fitz has done over a 6 game span, but they can’t really think he’s a $10 million QB.

The whole trade was luck on our part and desperation on the Raiders part for losing their starting QB. If Campbell didn’t go down we probably wouldn’t trade Palmer and lucky for a 3rd next.

If there is no patience this deal doesn’t get made either. If he has no patience he trades Palmer right off the bat for a 3rd maybe a 2nd at the very most. Waiting till the season gets underway was a great move. It’s almost a guarantee that SOME team will have a major injury to their QB. If that team has playoff hopes and their backup don’t give any hope, that team is gonna offer a lot to pull Carson out of retirement. So, he played the odds that he would get a better offer mid season. That is patience and being a smart businessman. The LUCKY part was that it happened to the Raiders with Hue Jackson, right after Al Davis dies, and 2 days before the trade deadline. Like I said, there was some luck there to get as much value as we did, but it was PATIENCE that really made the deal happen.

I think you guys are missing the point here: Ok we got the the picks, now we need to meke those picks count. We need some high quality scouters or at least know if ML will stay here for a long time, so we can draft some players that can play in this system.

MB was going to hold onto Palmer simply because of his principles and force his retirement. This was not a strategic or even planned move because there were so many previous offers that were declined. MB’s decision was influenced by his relationship with Hue and the fact that if was leaked that he didn’t trade Palmer, in return for what was on the table, there would have been an overthrowing of the Bengal’s government by good and patient people of Cincinnati.

Our last few draft classes have been impressive and production from those classes have exceeded the majority of expectations. I’m encouraged by having 2 first round picks in 2012 and possibly 2 more in 2013.

I question the depth of dumb that is intrinsically Brown; as an acting GM. Is it a permanent condition? He is not wired for the job and it seems inevitable that vintage Brown will appear again, soon after this stumble-luck-high has subsided.

Kick Carson to the curb and ignor the first offers. The preseason offers had to be garbage. The best offers would be from a desperate team before the deadline or before the next draft., in that order. I’m surprisedit took this long for someone to get desperate to save their season. I figured there would be either injury or performance issues by now that would drive up the price.
It’s genius to a point in that in that he had to see the right business strategy here to get max value for his asset. It’s luck to a point that matters outside of his control, however probable, needed to unfold his way. It’s a calculated risk in that regard. That’s true of any business deal.
I think the issue here is that he probably chose the right strategy for the wrong reason (emotions) and needed to be cajoled into executing it deftly.
In that regard it’s serendipity that he bungled his vengeance into a jackpot.
That’s pure luck!

His strategy is infuriating to football fans who want to see their team win, but it isn’t dumb. His two strategic goals are to (1) parlay his monopoly over pro football in the Cincinnati metro area into as much money as possible, and (2) maintain unchallenged authority over the franchise, so that nobody interferes with objective #1. If MB cared about opinion on these fan blogs, he’d probably view us as babes in the woods who would have given up Carson for the first crap deal that was offered. After all, he is the guy that fleeced Hamilton County for PBS, right?

Carson got tired of the personal empire that puts return to shareholders (the Browns) over winning, so he left. MB’s goal was to maximize value for the asset, and he did so. It fits with the bigger idea that he wants the team just competitive enough and the fans just hopeful enough that he gets a crowd of 60,000 out to each game. If the team happens to win big once in a while, so much the better. If it wins consistently, then it means he’s overpaying the players. After all, if the Bengals won back to back Super Bowls, it’s not like you could fit 90,000 people per game in the stadium the next year.