After Sunday's abysmal performance by the Bengals passing offense, only recording 94 yards passing and becoming largely ineffective against the Vikings, Bengals ownership is growing concerned about Palmer's health. More specifically, is the elbow that Palmer injured last year, a problem again this year? Are the Bengals protecting Palmer by not throwing the football deep? Or not throwing much at all?
Case in point. In the first seven games of the season, Palmer averaged 229.7 yards passing and passed 30 times or more in five of those seven games. In the past six games, Palmer averaged 172.2 yards passing per game and passed 30 times or more in only two of those six games.
Chris Mortensen of ESPN's Monday Night Countdown reports that Mike Brown visited with team trainers asking if there's something wrong with Carson Palmer's elbow. Palmer left Mortensen a voice mail, assuring that his elbow is fine and that his body feels great. Transcribed (aka, me using DVR to stop the report) the voice mail mostly reads:
"We realize that as an offense, as a passing offense, and we will bounce back in the passing game. My body feels great."
Mortensen did point out that the Bengals struggles passing the football are largely contributed to the team losing Chris Henry for the year. We'll just file this under the heading, "Bengals offense is surprisingly grounded because it's just not clicking." For now.