There are two things that you know even if you live under a rock in Cincinnati: one is that you know you can save 15 percent, or more, with Geico car insurance, and two is that Carson Palmer no longer wants to be a Bengal.
It all started back before the Bengals coached in the Senior Bowl. Carson Palmer's agent, David Dunn, released a statement that said Palmer requested a trade from Bengals owner Mike Brown and that if he wasn't traded, he would consider retirement. Then, Brown said that the Bengals would not be trading Palmer. After that, Palmer put his Cincinnati house on the market. Then, just to really hammer it home, Palmer's agent, Dunn, said that he'd be really surprised if Palmer returned to play in Cincinnati.
However, NFL writer Peter King thinks the exact opposite. He wouldn't be surprised if Palmer sticks around in Cincinnati at all.
I think it's not over for Carson Palmer in Cincinnati. Jay Gruden's going to convince him he can be great in Gruden's West Coast offense, and I believe Marvin Lewis will do Palmer a favor and make sure neither Chad Ochocinco or Terrell Owens will be on the roster opening day -- whenever that is.
Gruden has said that he would do everything in his power to
make everything right for Palmer. Gruden works within the west coast offense which uses short horizontal passes in an effort to stretch the defense to allow the running game and long passing game to open up.
Palmer told Bratkowski that
he wasn't the reason that he requested a trade. If that wasn't the problem than what was?... You know.. other than the losing all the time thing. Could the biggest problem be Chad Ochocinco and, to a lesser extent, Terrell Owens? It's not hard to see that Palmer and Ochocinco (soon to be known, again, as Johnson?) have not been on the same page. Actually, as they have spent more time together in the huddle, it seems that the pages they're on are so far apart that they might actually be in two separate books.
When TOcho didn't play against the
Chargers at the end of the 2010 season, Palmer looked re-energized and, for the first time in a while, looked happy to be on the field. He had the best game of his career that week, throwing to
Jerome Simpson,
Andre Caldwell,
Jordan Shipley and
Jermaine Gresham, and none of them have more than three seasons experience. Could the combination of moving to a youth movement in the wide receivers corps and a new offensive coordinator with a west-coast offense theory be what it takes to keep Palmer in stripes in 2011?
With the quarterback stock in the current NFL draft class falling and the current lack of a CBA, the Bengals could find themselves in a terrible situation if Carson Palmer decides that he'd rather retire early than finish his career in Cincinnati. The terrible situation that I speak of is a situation in which Jordan Palmer is the most experienced quarterback on the roster and he's backed up by Dan LeFevour and a possible rookie quarterback. I think I speak for all of us when I say that we don't really want that.
