Heading into the 2003 season, months after Marvin Lewis was hired as the team's head coach, the Bengals decided to hold Carson Palmer on the sidelines for a time while Jon Kitna resumed his duties as the team's starting quarterback. It made sense at the time, as much as it makes sense to start rookie Andy Dalton today. The difference, mostly the team's composition. Cincinnati had already an established offense in 2003, so it was ideal to ease Palmer into that role. Now there's a new offense that everyone, not just the rookie quarterback, has to learn.
Probably the best part of Joe Reedy's posting regarding Lewis' comments on the differences from 2003 and 2011, is actually counting the total number of words Lewis used to respond with, beautifully describing his complete disbelief with Lewis' openness on the subject. You can read the entire interview here with a blurb after the jump.
"Andy comes in here in a little different situation. He’s been in an offense that has thrown the ball quite a bit. He’s been in that situation, he’s handled it all the way through his career and the football team is put together differently right now. There isn’t a veteran quarterback on this team that has been here and been here around these guys. They’re learning a new offense that was also different then. Jon had been in the offensive system and now we’re all starting from scratch and the guy that our offensive coaches have coached the most this offseason prior to football starting was Andy Dalton because we had spent the most time with him up and leading to the draft. He came here with a little head’s up on really the other quarterbacks other than Bruce who had been in the system before."