Prior to Carson Palmer being the first pick in the 2003 draft by the Bengals, he was a 5th year senior who led the USC Trojans to an Orange Bowl victory while winning the Heisman Trophy in 2002. Palmer was also named MVP of that Orange Bowl. His career stats at USC were 72 touchdowns, 49 ints, 927 completions, 1,569 attempts, and 11,818 yards. These numbers are good enough to be USC’s career leader in pass yards as well as the PAC-10’s leader in yards, attempts and completions, which led to his number being retired at his school.
Welcome to part three of our series where we look at the Bengals’ previous number one overall draft picks. Today we take a look at Carson Palmer, who many believed would lead us to the promised land for the first time ever. So, let’s take a look and see how that went.
Carson played 15 years in the NFL, the first seven of which were in Cincinnati. He signed a six-year, $42.69 million contract on July 23, 2003 and sat behind Jon Kitna his rookie season. Come 2004 the Jungle was excited and couldn’t wait to see what Palmer could do. The wait wasn’t long, in 2005, Palmer led the Bengals to their first winning season in fifteen years with an 11-5 record, winning the AFC North. He threw 32 touchdowns that season, had a QB rating over 100, and led the league in completion percentage. The Bengals were so impressed that on December 29, 2005, they signed him to a six-year extension after only two seasons as the starter.
Now we all know what happened next. January 8th, 2006 will go down as one of the worst days in Bengals’ history. It was the Bengals’ first playoff appearance since January of 199, and on the first pass play of the game for Cincy (a 66 yard bomb to Chris Henry), Kimo von Oelhoffen of the Steelers (formerly a Bengal), hit Palmer below the knee, tearing both his ACL and MCL. Palmer would exit the game and the Jon Kitna led Bengals just couldn’t pull off the victory, losing 31-17.
From that moment on, the Bengals endured more hardship and losing, only earning a playoff spot one more time with Carson at the helm, and that was 2009. He tore a ligament in his elbow ending his 2008 season, and came back in ’09 to lead the Bengals to a division title for the second time in his career, but suffered a loss to the Jets in the first round, 24-14. Palmer played poorly in his only full playoff appearance, only completing 50% of his passes for 1 TD and 1 int, with a 53.8 passer rating.
After finishing 4-12 in 2010, including a ten game losing streak, Palmer demanded a trade, and swore he’d retire if it didn’t happen. He had $80 million in the bank and didn’t need to play. Knowing this, the Bengals drafted Andy Dalton in the second round of 2011, and after he led them to a 6-2 start that year, Mike Brown finally traded Palmer to Oakland on October 18, 2011, thus ending his time in Cincinnati.
Carson Palmer was by far the most successful number one overall draft pick of the three by the Bengals, but I wouldn’t say he lived up to the hype either. Much like Ki-Jana Carter in our last article, Palmer suffered some major injuries, one in particular, that changed the course of his career. Many Bengals fans, myself included, will forever wonder what could have been had he not gotten hurt in that first playoff game.
After reviewing the first three number one overall picks by the Bengals, it appears things haven’t worked out too well for the team, or the individual players. Makes you wonder what will happen with this year’s number one pick. With the pick looking to be a lock for Joe Burrow, the fourth and final article of this series will take a look at his senior season at LSU, with a prediction for his career and what else the Bengals could do with the first pick!
