Anybody seen Carlson Palmer? I know he's still the Bengals quarterback, but the guy currently under center doesn't resemble the same person who threw for 32 touchdowns in 2005 and followed that up with 28 more in '06. Palmer slipped last season, throwing for 4,131 yards (a personal record), but also tossed 20 picks.
And now, two games into 2008, he's the worst-rated quarterback in the league. A league, I might add, that also includes Kyle Orton, Tarvaris Jackson and Brett Favre. And things don't look to get better anytime soon, at least according to Palmer. When asked how he's doing, he offered this:
"Not good at all. We're 0-2. Not where we want to be ... "In theory, it sounds fixable. In practice, it seems a tad more daunting. Especially when you factor in Palmer's comments about the Bengals 2008 second-round pick, wide receiver Jerome Simpson, who was supposed to contribute immediately:
"It's been a combination of teams saying, 'We're not going to let Chad (Ocho Cinco) beat us, we're not going to let T.J. (Houshmandzadeh) beat us and also my fault ... I need to do a better job getting the ball to the guys when their shots are called. We need to keep running the ball, be aggressive in the run game. Not let a defense take a guy out of the box and put him on Chad and take Chad out of the game."
Palmer said he likes rookie wide receiver Jerome Simpson's skills, "but until he proves he can go out and be perfect with assignments, blocking, and line up in the right spot and always run the right route ... once that part of his game comes along, he can be a very effective player for us but it's still going to be a slow process."Simpson was drafted to replace Ocho Cinco who, you may recall, spent all offseason demanding a trade. That didn't happen, but Cincinnati's offense is still a joke, and looking at their schedule, there's a very real chance they don't win more than six games this season. On the upside, there's a good chance Marvin Lewis goes out on a high note: the Bengals face the Chiefs in Week 17. So there's that.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-18-2008 @ 4:08PM
Chris F. said...
Of course, even with all our offensive firepower, 11-5 in 2005 has been the Bengals best record since 1988.
Utimately, making an offense work is about chemistry and the ability of the players to do their jobs, not the diagrams, schemes or even the players. Being a big name means nothing if you can't keep your ego in check and focus on fundamentals. Chad Johnson (Ocho Cinco) does good when he wants to. But he needs to shut up and just let his play do the talking.
Route running is route running and blocking is blocking be it the Patriots, Browns, Bengals, and what not.
All the off-field troubles the Bengals have had left Bengal fans like myself wanting to shoot someone in the foot. But the players do enough of it themselves. This in addition to bad personnel moves (letting Eric Steinbach and Willie Anderson go to division rivals no less), failing to groom a replacement for Rudi Johnson, a shot gun approach to drafting (they rarely hit on established players, much less players with "potential") to name a few, and it shows.
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