If you're not familiar with The Onion, it's an online national news satire website. They take national and world news and put their humorous spin on it. It's similar to Cincinnati's Derf Magazine in that way. If you like laughing and reading, and doing both at the same time, you should give The Onion (and Derf, for that matter) a whirl.
Now, if you're wondering why I'm talking about this at all, it's because The Onion took a shot at Bengal's quarterback Carson Palmer Monday.
CINCINNATI—Claiming that the phone had been ringing off the hook all morning, Bengals owner and general manager Mike Brown told reporters Tuesday that representatives from every NFL franchise had contacted the Bengals organization to insist they absolutely do not want quarterback Carson Palmer. "As soon as the news got out that Carson wanted to be traded, coaches and general managers were just clamoring to let me know what a bad fit he would be for any team wanting to win football games," said Brown, adding that he was also contacted by several CFL teams expressing their uninterest in the Bengals starting quarterback. "Some teams have been hounding me five or six times a day just to let me know how badly they didn’t want to see Carson Palmer in one of their uniforms next year." Brown confirmed that at least two dozen teams had offered the Bengals draft picks in exchange for a guarantee that the organization wouldn’t try to make a deal for Palmer.
Who cares, right? I know I really don't, especially since nothing in the block quote above is true. The only reason that I decided to take the time to write this is to show you how far the Bengals franchise has fallen. Their franchise quarterback, who takes his job as serious as any in the NFL, is now the butt of a joke on a national website who probably hasn't included Cincinnati in a single story of theirs before.
Congratulations to the Bengals. You are now allowing your classiest and hardest working players to be turned into material for comedy writers.