It worries me that my scalp might not recover after the constant head-scratching following Mike Brown's comments regarding Carson Palmer during Tuesday's press conference. We're stuck like a roller coaster at the top of the hill, speechless after watching a viral YouTube video, nodding our head in a foreign language class as if we actually know what our teacher said. We just don't get it. Carson Palmer doesn't want to be here and his value isn't going to magically increase after a year-long "sabbatical". Not that it matters, because we're fully aware that Palmer isn't going to be traded this year. Maybe you're like me though; maybe you're still shocked at the pronouncement of such certainty that we wonder if dementia hasn't been setting in. It would explain refusing Washington's first round pick and a conditional third rounder in 2008 for Chad Ochocinco.
I think you can, and should, stop asking about Carson Palmer. He's not going anywhere. Mike Brown will sit on him at least until the trading deadline. For those tweeting and emailing and texting me to say, "THIS MAKES NO SENSE!'' My answer is: "I KNOW!'' But Mike Brown cannot live with a template that would, down the road, drive other established stars out of town once they became dissatisfied with the Bengals' professionalism and commitment to winning.
Joe Reedy makes the argument that if the Bengals trade Palmer, it shouldn't be right now. Fine by us. But we're still struggling here. Give us a logical explanation. Please make it sensible, understanding why Mike Brown is so adamant against trading Palmer. Principles? Might sound great to the mind that resides on Brown street, but it's already knocked our roller coaster off the tracks, descending into a furious death of mindless drool.
I've had my own discussions with friends and coworkers about this. My point is the same, which echoes John Clayton's point on Tuesday. Mike Brown doesn't care about the organization's success when it comes to his principles. Actually. That's not new. Yet it weighs more to him than doing the necessary to fix the franchise's woes that's dated back to his inaugural season as the team's president. It would be a stretch to acquire a second round pick for Palmer; the market is saturated, Palmer's performances has been middle-of-the-road at best (though you could blame overall talent around him) and published scouting reports that question Palmer's overall ability after knee and elbow injuries. But it would finally end the period, the endless questions we have that annoys the holy hell out of CincyJungle readers. Our bad. But it drives us mad.
What we find hysterically funny is that Mike Brown is so worried that trading Palmer would open the door for other top-shelf players to demand their own trades by setting a precedence with Palmer, that he'd sacrifice the organization over his ridiculously selfish principles. End that. Make the organization more desirable. Fix the problem where players want to leave in the first place. For all of the statements that Mike Brown is a businessman, he's really just a bad business man. How much more money could he acquire if he only took being an NFL owner seriously? Wouldn't a businessman maximize profits by increasing revenues streams; not as a poor bum on the side of the road accepting handouts from the NFL's revenue sharing?
And as long as the Bengals run with such carelessness that has been promoting losing seasons for over 20 years, the more the city of Cincinnati and Hamilton county hurts. County tax payers pay for the stadium and less revenue is absorbed downtown as less games are sold out. All because of Brown's selfish pride, sticking to irrelevant principles.
What has Brown's principles gotten us?
This: 3-13, 5-11, 3-13, 3-13, 7-9, 8-8, 7-9, 3-13, 4-12, 4-12, 6-10, 2-14, 8-8, 8-8, 11-5, 8-8, 7-9, 4-11-1, 10-6 and 4-12.
We generally keep a balanced mindset, holding our angry ninja in a locked steal cage. Finding understanding in a move, or in our case a thought process, is important, and frankly there's far more websites that echo the shouts of disgruntled fans. It's not a market we've ever desired. Yet there are times that understanding, that balanced view, gets twisted that has to be corrected. As a byproduct of the twisted acceptance of an understanding that shouldn't be, comes a sanity that autocorrects the disgruntled fan.
Yet sometimes, everything goes out the window, knocked out of whack while the perspective gets clouded from a gusty wind out of Paul Brown stadium that induces headaches, sighs and broken noses from violent facepalms.
So our only request is this. We know that Mike Brown won't sell the team, or retire from day-to-day operations that would hand the torch to Katie Blackburn, who we hope asks for help in the form of a revised and improved personnel department. No. That won't happen. But please, no more press conferences. No more.