In one of the more downplayed stories in the going on two weeks of NFL frenzy has been the Bungles owner Mike Brown refusing to trade Carson Palmer, and letting him carry out his retirement threat for not “honoring his contract.” Palmer would be entering the ninth year of his NFL career that has not delivered the elite level potential that Palmer has sporatically displayed throughout his stint. And not that I’m one to condone going after qbs, but Brown is trying to finish off what the PIttsburgh Steelers tried in the Wild Card round in 2006 and end Palmer’s career.
Brown’s play is bush league. The man can cut any player at any point of their contract, but says he won’t “reward” Palmer for not honoring what he signed. I’m sorry Mike, but if Palmer no longer wants to play for a franchise that has led the NFL in convictions for a decade and not made one single attempt to bring in a top-flite free-agent, all while asking your franchise qb to get pummeled behind an offensive line that you refuse to upgrade, well I can’t blame him.
Palmer is not squeaky clean in this whole manner either. Drafted out of USC in 2003, Palmer’s Heisman Trophy-winning arm was supposed to raise Cincinnati out of the dregs of the NFL and build a tradition of winning in a joke of a NFL city. Well, nine years and two fluke playoff appearances later (both of which ended in Wild Card home playoff losses), Palmer has never lived up to the hype. But the problem here is, Palmer knew what he was signing up for when he inked that extension. He voluntarily commited his football future to the seventh circle of NFL hell. And in a perfect world, people should honor their contracts.
But the NFL is not a perfect world, Mike Brown is far from a perfect owner who is not making the smart move by trading his not a perfect quarterback for at least some draft picks. In the end all your left with is an owner handcuffing his team because he’s too stubborn to do otherwise, which is why the Bungles are exactly in the same spot they were in when they thought they were getting a golden are out of USC eight years ago.