Larry Brown Sports

It’s really sad it has come to Carson Palmer tailgating in Los Angeles while his Bengals team is in Denver preparing for a game. Carson’s only 31 and still fully capable of quarterbacking a team to third in its division. That’s what he should be doing, not sipping Tecates (or Coke?) at USC tailgates.

At least he chose a good game to attend — the Trojans beat Syracuse 38-17. And if you thought Palmer just went to USC but wasn’t a hardcore fan, you were wrong. He wears his Trojan pride on his head.

Picture Credit: USC Psycho, via One Mo Thing

Arizona Cardinals kicker Jay Feely stirred up the racial pot Tuesday tweeting about Carson Palmer’s retirement from the NFL. Here’s what he wrote:

Feely apparently is auditioning for a spot as a future talk show host after his NFL career ends, because going to the race card is an excellent way to ignite debate. Responding to his point, yes, I do believe most fans are more sympathetic to the plight of white players compared to black ones. However, this situation is different.

Much like Sportress of Blogitude wrote, I support any and all players’ efforts to escape Cincinnati. I don’t care if you’re white, black, Asian, Pacific-Islander, or Antarctican (is that such a thing?), I don’t wish anyone the misfortune of playing for that disaster of a franchise. Look, if man-bander Nick Lachey calls your franchise a joke, then you know it’s a bad situation. I really think something would be wrong with a person if they did not want out of Cincinnati.

Even with the NFL season on hold, Cinncinati Bengals owner Mike Brown is staying consistent with his word on quarterback Carson Palmer.

“We don’t plan to trade Carson,” Brown told the NFL Network at the league’s spring owners meetings in Indianapolis. “He’s important to us. He’s a very fine player, and we do want him to come back. If he chooses not to, he’d retire. And we would go with Andy Dalton, the younger player we drafted, who’s a good prospect.

“Ideally, we’d have both of them. That’d be the best way to go forward. If we don’t have Carson, we’ll go with Andy.”

Mr. Brown continues to reiterate that, for Palmer, it’s either Cincinnati or nowhere. Palmer told the Bengals he was done with the organization and when former TCU quarterback Andy Dalton was drafted, it seemed they’d finally grant him his wish. Instead, once the NFL season resumes, Palmer will be staring at retirement.

With a young core of talented receivers in Jordan Shipley, Jermaine Gresham and A.J. Green, and the likely departure of Ochocinco and T.O., the Bengals should quit playing stubborn games with their former franchise QB.

By trading Carson, what’s the worst that can happen? Maybe, he’ll beat them later down the road in a measly regular season game. But realistically, at this point in his career, he’s washed up and not a Super Bowl-caliber threat. By sending him elsewhere, the Bengals would at least receive some compensation.

Let the guy go, get a draft pick in return and call it a day.

Either the Bengals are going to trade Carson Palmer, or they are going to force a player who was once one of the game’s better quarterbacks into retirement.  Anyone who has paid attention since the NFL season concluded knows that Palmer wants to be traded, but his latest remarks seem out of character for a notoriously classy player.  The comments prove the 31-year-old has reached the boiling point.

“I will never set foot in Paul Brown Stadium again,” Palmer told WCPO through friends. “I have $80 million in the bank. I don’t have to play football for money. I’ll play it for the love of the game but that would have to be elsewhere. I’m prepared to live my life.”

That certainly sounds like a veteran who’s not messing around.  Who can blame him?  Palmer has wasted away in Cincinnati his entire career, leaving behind the best days of his career when he blew out his knee in a seemingly inevitable playoff loss to the Steelers.  Bengals owner Mike Brown has tried his best to assure fans he has no intention of trading his franchise quarterback, but that decision could be out of his control.

In his most recent edition of Monday Morning Quarterback, Peter King indicated that the Bengals are finally entertaining offers for Palmer.  That’s probably a smart move.  When a normally quiet athlete starts revealing the quantity of his life savings, you should take the hint.  Not to mention, Palmer has done enough for Cincinnati over the years.  Players like Palmer deserve at least a shot at contending for a championship, and there’s no way the Bengals are going to provide him with it.

If the Cincinnati Bengals are not willing to make serious changes within their organization, it appears Carson Palmer will try to make them himself. ESPN’s Chris Mortenson reported on Sunday night that Palmer has demanded a trade from the Bengals and is willing to retire if they refuse to deal him. Palmer is under contract through 2014, and Mort claims several sources told him the quarterback is comfortable with where he’s at financially and would have no problem considering retirement.

At the moment, it looks like the retirement card could be necessary.  Bengals owner Mike Brown wants to keep his franchise quarterback and said he has no plans to trade him, despite admitting that Palmer asked for a trade about a week ago.  Palmer may have struggled the past couple seasons, but he was once an elite talent and ownership has never really done much to build a winning team around him.  After a 4-12 season, who can blame him for wanting to skip town?

Brown is saying what he needs to say at the moment, but he’d be silly to call Palmer’s bluff with the lack of quality starting quarterbacks around the league.  Plenty of teams are in the market for a quarterback and this year’s draft class got a little thinner with Andrew Luck’s decision to return to school.  The 49ers, Seahawks, Cardinals, Panthers, and Dolphins are just a handful that come to mind.  Despite the years and money Palmer is owed, there will be a few teams out there willing to give up a quality draft pick for his services.

All great players want the ball because they believe they have the ability to help their team win. The problem is you have to know the right and wrong time to voice a complaint. Memo to Chad Johnson Ochocinco: the 4th quarter when your team is trying to make a comeback is the wrong time to bitch at your quarterback.

Ocho was conspicuously missing from the team’s gameplan on Monday night, double-teamed constantly by the Steelers. While Terrell Owens was going off for 10 catches, 141 yards, and two touchdowns, Chad was dealing with the extra coverage and hardly targeted by Carson Palmer. Carson targeted Chad seven times but he didn’t record his first and only catch until the 4th quarter.

In the 3rd quarter, Chad actually caught a pass but it was negated because of a holding penalty. Ocho was so pissed after making the play that he spiked the ball causing a delay of game penalty that was declined. Then early in the 4th quarter with his team down 27-7, Chad was overthrown on a short post over the middle and immediately started going off on his quarterback. One of the lineman had to push Chad away from Carson, and after Palmer completed the first of three straight passes to T.O., Ocho headed straight to the sidelines in anger. The Enquirer says Marvin Lewis pulled Chad for those plays, but it’s hard to know exactly what happened.

Now don’t get it wrong — Chad was happy to see T.O. have success as we saw in this celebration — but he wanted some love too. Owens addressed the issue after the game saying they need to find a way to get 85 the ball while Carson said the double-coverage played a big role in Chad’s lack of action. I understand Chad’s frustration because he wants to help his team win, but bitching towards the end of the game only makes things worse, and he’s hurting the team when he’s not in the game. He has to have much more composure than that.

Photo Credit: The Enquirer/Jeff Swinger

The more Cincinnati Bengals games I watch, the more I realize Carson Palmer just isn’t what he used to be.  A former Pro Bowler and top-5 quarterback in the NFL, Palmer has had a lot of trouble protecting the football over the past few seasons.  More specifically, he has never appeared to be the same Carson since he tore his ACL during the playoffs back in 2006.

Palmer’s seventh interception of the 2010 season was a costly one.  The Bengals found themselves trailing the Dolphins 22-14 late in the game Sunday afternoon, but still had a chance to send the game to overtime.  They even got some help from Miami when a roughing the passer call put Cincinnati into Dolphins territory.  Just when it appeared the Bengals had a shot to drive the field and at least give themselves a chance to tie with a touchdown and a two-point conversion, Palmer threw the ball right into the hands of Miami defensive back Sean Smith.  It was the first pick of Smith’s career.

If you add in Terrell Owens’ lucky touchdown catch that should have been an interception, you get a tough day from the Bengals’ leader.  With Chad Ochocinco and T.O., Palmer has plenty of talent to throw to and just hasn’t been able to get it done.  The Bengals now find themselves in a hole with a 2-5 record, and for once we can say a lot of the blame rests on their quarterback’s shoulders.