With the news that Carson Palmer is demanding a trade, we've mostly attributed that to the overall theme that we've had running since Mike Brown's press conference announcing Marvin Lewis' return. If you have a franchise quarterback, a guy that has oozed class, humility with a stanch defense of his teammates even taking the burden of every loss the team has suffered, then you can only conclude something is wrong with the franchise.
That was articulated by Aaron Wilson, who reported that Bengals players actually wanted the front office to be serious with their approach to football. It's not like Mike Brown is the class clown. Though we find a more comforting analogy that Brown often has chats with Ron Slater. Can you imagine if Mike Brown was the one that said:
Behind every good man there is a woman, and that woman was Martha Washington, man, and everyday George would come home, she would have a big fat bowl waiting for him, man, when he come in the door, man, she was a hip, hip, hip lady, man.
We can't, and won't, argue that point. Nor will we argue that the Brown family doesn't take football seriously. The reason that the Mike Brown and Art Rooney II cartoons are so funny is because it's actually the way we believe their conversation would go.
Yet, one question we haven't really asked is. If Palmer were not the starting quarterback in 2011, how would you feel about that? Is he played that well in the past few seasons to make you believe that the organization would suffer that much.
Mike Tuck of ESPN 1080 in Orlando, writes that Palmer is not a good fit for the Dolphins.
Is he the worst quarterback in the league? No. Is he better than Chad Henne? Probably yes. Is he a quarterback that can turn around a franchise though? No. He had his chance in his prime with the Bengals and failed. He is now 31 years old, overpaid, and hasn't been the same since tearing his ACL. If the Bengals cut him, he would be an upgrade for many teams at the right price. Miami might be included on that list.
But to think about trading for him would be idiotic. Miami has wasted too many draft picks on bad quarterbacks in the last decade. Why waste another?
Carson Palmer is average. Sometimes he is not even that. That tiger is not going to change his stripes and revert back to Pro Bowl form at this stage.
This comes from someone that follows a franchise with three quarterbacks that combined for 17 touchdowns and 19 interceptions. Chad Pennington completed one pass for 19 yards in 2010 and he was actually posted the team's leading quarterback rating. Oh, how the mighty Palmer has fallen.