love notion of No. 9 as elite QB -- but Palmer simply isn't

[WHO-DEY-BENGALS_18]

love notion of No. 9 as elite QB -- but Palmer simply isn't
Jan. 10, 2010
By Josh Katzowitz
Special to CBSSports.com






CINCINNATI -- Carson Palmer is not the quarterback you want him to be.

He's not the same player he was in 2005, the last time the Bengals won the AFC North, when he completed 67.8 percent of his passes for 3,836 yards, 32 touchdowns and just 12 interceptions. He's not the same guy he was in 2006 and 2007 when he threw for more than 4,000 yards a season. He's not the elite signal-caller you remember.

Carson Palmer won't put up big-time stats when he's doing this more than throwing. (US Presswire)

He's not the quarterback you want him to be. He can't be. Not in this run-heavy, run-first, run-Cedric-Benson-nearly-all-the-time offense. Not with this coaching staff and where it wants to take the team. Not at this point in his career. It's just not possible.

You want proof? Ask him that, assuming the Bengals continue to use this type of offensive scheme, if he can still be the All-Pro quarterback who recorded the gaudy statistics and made Pro Bowl rosters.

"No, other teams are throwing the ball a lot more and you can't keep up," Palmer said following the Bengals' 24-14 playoff loss to the Jets on Saturday. "The top three or four guys are in passing offenses that throw the ball a lot. It's statistically impossible. I can definitely do better and compete better and throw the ball better. But there are two or three teams in the league that throw the ball a lot more than they run it, and we run it a lot more than we throw it."

That wasn't the case Saturday, when the Bengals didn't run more often than they passed -- they just ran it a lot more successfully. But for the season, Cincinnati ran 505 times and threw 477; compare that to Peyton Manning's Colts, who threw 601 times and ran 366.

So, put the thought of Palmer as an elite quarterback out of your mind. Assuming the offensive coaches keep this same philosophy, Palmer won't be the top guy in the league. Or even close to a top guy.

That's not what's most disconcerting, though. What's really alarming is how Palmer performs when he actually takes his drops and looks to fling the ball down the field. He's just ... well, he's rather ordinary.

On Saturday, he completed 18 of 36 passes for 146 yards, a touchdown and an interception. He threw behind his receivers, he threw five feet over their heads. On one throw late in the game as Palmer tried to hit Chad Ochocinco on a corner route, the ball was so badly thrown that Ochocinco gave up on the play. And Ochocinco never gives up when he has a chance to make a highlight-reel catch.

It wasn't just Palmer's performance Saturday, though. His regular-season stats look like this: a 60.5 completion percentage, 3,094 yards (the lowest 16-game total he's ever produced), 21 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. He had one 300-yard passing game and was 1 of 11 for no yards in the regular-season finale against the Jets.

You know who he was comparable to this year? Washington's Jason Campbell. You know who had better statistics overall? Jacksonville's David Garrard.

This is not to say Palmer isn't a good teammate, because he most certainly is. He's a good leader. A tough guy who dives for first downs, knowing a linebacker is about to pop him. He's polite and unfailingly nice. He's the type of guy who holds the door open for others, even if you're 15 feet away. I like him as a person, we all like him.

And Saturday's dreadful Bengals performance wasn't all his fault. The coaching staff mismanaged the challenges. The defense couldn't stop the big run and couldn't get pressure on a rookie quarterback playing his first playoff game in a hostile environment with a wind chill of 9 degrees. Palmer didn't get much help from his receivers -- Ochocinco couldn't escape the clutches of Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis while Andre Caldwell and Laveranues Coles and Daniel Coats had a tough time hanging on to balls that should have been caught.

But is Palmer an elite quarterback, the kind of quarterback who's taken No. 1 in the draft? Is he worth the $118.75 million extension he received at the end of 2005?

Not if he's playing in this system.

"He took what we tried to do with the running game, the play-action and manage it and get us into good running situations," offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski said. "I'm very pleased with that aspect of it. I don't know that it was a big adjustment for him, but it was something he grasped, and as a leader, he took it. He got us into this situation. We fell short, but through what he did and how he did in concert with other guys, he helped us win the division."

But he couldn't win Saturday's first-round playoff game. Afterward, Palmer was asked if he preferred to switch back to a pass-heavy attack that utilized his throwing talents (if they are, in fact, still there).

"I prefer what wins," he said. "If the coaches go back to the drawing board and say what's going to win for us is throwing the ball more, that's great. If they think what's going to win is running the ball and playing defense, that's great. It's so much more complicated than saying, 'We're just going to throw it.' That's the simple answer. It's so much more in depth than that. There are a number of things we need to figure out as a team and decide what's best for us."

That's the kind of guy Palmer is. Team first, and he really means it. But at some point, this team needs a quarterback who's better than David Garrard and Jason Campbell, especially if ownership is paying him nine figures.

"I've seen better out of Palmer," was the pronouncement of Revis after the game.

But the question is this: Does that Palmer -- the elite quarterback and the quarterback you want him to be; the quarterback to whom Revis was referring -- still exist?

:angry:

 

[cantstopthepack]

Im sorry to admit but that guy does have a point, Palmer looked like the rookie in that playoff game with a lot of high thrown balls and just leadin his team incorrectly. But then again not all blame can be placed on him because Ocho got shutdown by Revis, then Caldwell and Coles were both playing injured