Much like what happened last year, there was a period of certainty, a period of optimism, a period of pessimism and a period of certainty. Call it the circle of public information in the life of NFL injuries. On Friday, Palmer said "I have no doubt I'm ready to go next week." Certainty. Later that night, Marvin Lewis said "Carson should be fine. He should be able to play next week." Optimism. A few days later it was learned that Palmer was wearing a boot, saying "It's early in preseason. It's still early in training camp. I want to work. I've got a lot of work to do and I don't [want] to miss any time. We’ll see." Pessimism, with Palmer-esque optimistic spin.
And now we're back to certainty. ESPN's Bob Holtzman reports that the Bengals quarterback will not play against the New England Patriots this Thursday.
This has yet to be confirmed by the local beat writers. While the Bengals said that Palmer is probable, Joe Reedy (we think) snickers without actually saying, "yea, whatever", writing, "it would be doubtful to see him taking snaps at Gillette Stadium." This has a lot to do with earlier observations that while Palmer had the boot removed, he wore "a shoe with an ankle wrap."
The injury has been termed from a range of a mild ankle sprain to a high ankle sprain. Perhaps if we cut through the middle, it's a mild high ankle sprain. Confirming today, Lewis said the injury is a "moderate high-ankle sprain". Knowing Lewis' history of openness to the media providing injury reports, this probably means something is wrong with his shoulder.