Raiders Quarterback Carson Palmer Talks About His Return To Cincinnati

Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer spoke with Eric Gilmore with CBSSports.com on Monday and obviously the topic of returning to Cincinnati permeated. When asked how he feels about going back to Cincinnati, Palmer had his typical talking points queued -- the image of a professional football player during media interviews these days. And as we suspected, Palmer basically deferred most of the questions regarding his personal feelings returning to Cincinnati.

"I'm excited. You spend a certain amount of time somewhere, it's always a little bit different going back. More importantly, we have to get a win. It's been a rough environment. Any time you lose, it's a rough environment. Having lost a couple, we got to get back on a winning track. It's a good opportunity to go on the road, go on a long trip and kind of break that spell we've had for a while and get back in the win column."

Though Palmer knows what's in store for him on Sunday. When asked about the fan reaction expected at Paul Brown Stadium, Palmer said:

"I have a pretty good feeling how that's going to go. We'll wait and see Sunday at 1."

Right. The only fans expected to cheer are probably Raiders fans -- and that's only because they're Raiders fans. The rest will be launching unlimited rockets in the form of boo-birds, uniting divisive Bengals fans like nothing else in the world could.

Though we have to give the Raider beat writers credit, asking Palmer his stance on why he wanted to leave Cincinnati.

"I'm not going to dive back into that. To me this is three seasons later, two seasons later. That was in the past. I'm here now. I don't want to dive into that."

Dude. You never dove into that, Carson. You said you wanted to leave, left it at that and demanded a trade, putting an entire franchise on standby until it resolved the mess that you left behind. Granted it was the biggest blessing that could have happened -- otherwise we wouldn't have a young exciting quarterback with intangibles Palmer could never touch. Plus the Bengals have a new starting offensive guard graded as one of the league's quickest risers and a second-round pick next year that could have a similar impact.

The Cincinnati media will have their opportunity later this week and we're putting our chips on Joe Reedy to ask a few questions that will probably generate a "no comment". Only because that's how Carson has always rolled.