Why I am Thrilled the Bengals Won't Trade Carson Palmer

Part of me hates that the first post to this site is about a division rival rather than about the Steelers, but it indirectly affects the fortunes of our beloved NFL team, so bear with me.

We, fans of a team in the AFC North not located in Cincinnati, Ohio, should be elated that the Bengals will not trade their leader, Carson Palmer.  We should be ecstatic about it, actually.  And it has nothing to do with Palmer's threat to retire if he is not traded; let's face facts here.  NFL Pundits aside, no one really considers Palmer to be one of the NFL's elite.  Aside from a few statistically good seasons, he has never done anything of value, even with a team as loaded with talented individuals like the 2010 Bengals.  Carson Palmer is Kyle Orton, basically.  Enough to keep his team from imploding (usually) but never enough to push them over the hump.

The 2010 season was actually downright abysmal for Carson.  He threw ill-advised passes at inopportune times, resulting in devastating turnovers more often than not.  With his receivers, running backs and defense, he should have led the Bengals on a run for the division if he was half the QB so many people think he is, but the bottom line is that he is not.  Maybe it was the knee injury, or the elbow injury, or just the fact that he came from USC and was overhyped from the beginning.  I don't know.  But the fact is that Carson Palmer is not a quarterback I fear much.

So if it isn't Palmer's play, what is it?

Call it the Barry Sanders Effect.

When the Lions refused to trade Barry Sanders, he retired.  That was the point when they lost their last shred of dignity.  They let egos get in the way of business and progress, and lost an absolutely golden opportunity to get a ton of talent in exchange for one player who had a few good years left in him.  They could have pulled off a coup similar to what Jerry Jones did when he traded Herschel Walker for what eventually amounted to three Super Bowl titles in four years.

But they didn't.

Instead, they said, "take that, Barry!"  And shot themselves in their collective foot.

Now the Bengals have the chance to get at least some talent in exchange for a quarterback whose reputation may be enough to net him a decent gig someplace like Arizona, where they desperately need a quarterback and have a ton of talent elsewhere to trade away.  But Mike Brown is being the same old Mike Brown, and is doing the exactly wrong thing for the given situation.

And I, as a Steelers fan, could not be happier.