Carson Palmer Trade Rumors Begin to Surface..... Again

I guess I shouldn't really say that they are beginning to surface. Carson Palmer trade rumors have surfaced and stayed surfaced since he demanded a trade back in January. Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown has done everything in his power to squash these rumors, stating over and over again that Carson Palmer would not be dealt to another team, whether he played or not.

No matter how hard Brown tries, though, logic will always prevail. The Bengals have their new quarterback of the future in Andy Dalton, selected in the second round of the 2011 NFL Draft, and head coach Marvin Lewis even says that the team is moving forward without Carson Palmer. Anybody with anything more than air between their ears knows that it would be best for the Bengals to trade Palmer as soon as they can, and it would be hard to believe that Brown doesn't believe the same thing.

One of those rumors seems to be more than a rumor: The Seattle Seahawks want Carson Palmer. It makes sense too. Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll was Palmer's head coach at USC. Carroll coached Palmer to a Heisman trophy.

"(Palmer) used to play for Pete Carroll," Salk said to Larry Rice on Saturday's MyNorthwest Weekend. "He won a Heisman, (they) won a championship together at USC. Matt Hasselbeck wasn't signed by the time they hit that deadline before the lockout.

"Could everything come together? I think you can present a pretty clear scenario where it actually does come together."

Matt Hasselbeck is finished in Seattle. He rejected a contract extension before the lockout went into effect on March 4 and the Seahawks are in need of a quarterback. Why didn't they draft one, though? They were in prime position to select a quarterback in the draft. They could have selected Dalton in the first round before the Bengals had a chance to, or Ryan Mallett in the second round. They didn't select a quarterback at all.

Charlie Whitehurst led the Seahawks to a playoff clinching victory over the St. Louis Rams in 2010 but I don't think many see Whitehurst as franchise quarterback material.

"They are a better team, I believe, with Carson Palmer than they are with Charlie Whitehurst," said Salk.

There are also the rumors that Mike Brown is softening his stance on trading Palmer. Now that they have their new quarterback, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to just put Palmer on the shelf and let him collect dust. Brown may have realized this.

So it's possible that the Bengals and the Seahawks could just make a quarterback swap in 2011. Maybe the Bengals will send Palmer to the Seahawks and it's possible that the Bengals will sign Hasselbeck for a year or two to help young Andy Dalton get ready to take the reins of Jay Gruden's new offense.

The Seahawks selected offensive linemen in the first two rounds of the draft this year. I wonder who they'll be protecting.