Could You Have At Least Spit On The Tip First?

There isn’t enough lube on the set of a 40 person gang bang, to ease the pain the Raiders must feel in their ass after sending their 1st round pick in the 2012 draft and a conditional 1st round pick in the 2013 draft, to the Bengals in exchange for QB Carson Palmer.

The Raiders took it  raw.  No lube, no spit…. nothing.

On Sunday, the 3-2 Raiders lost QB Jason Campbell for the season with a broker collarbone.  Backup QB Kyle Boller filled in and lead the Raiders to the win over the Browns to bring their record to 4-2.

Boller, himself a former 1st round flop, is not the QB that can lead the Raiders to the playoffs.  But luckily for the Bengals, the Raiders think that crybaby holdout Carson Palmer is.  

Palmer forced the Bengals hand this offseason when he demanded a trade or he threatened to retire.  So the Bengals selected QB Andy Dalton from TCU in the 2nd round of this year’s draft as their backup plan.

What was making Palmer’s trade demands so tricky and unlikely was the fact that Palmer is due to make $50 million in base salary from 2011-2014, when his contract finally expires.

I loved the Bengals stance on this situation from day one.  Upper management obviously could see Palmer s diminishing skills.  In the past 3 or 4 seasons, Carson’s arm strength has resembled that of an Ethiopian kid on one of those infomercials.  No wonder the likes of TJ Houshmanwhatshisname? and Ochocinco were unhappy.  The guy couldn’t throw the ball more than 15 yds on a fly.

But this is what makes the deal so vexing.  Knowing that they didn’t have a 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 7th round pick in this year’s draft, why would the Raiders pay up and get a guy who has diminishing skills, while you could have gotten a guy like Donovan McNabb (who was benched today in favor of Rookie Christian Ponder), for a 5th or 6th round pick?  Granted, McNabb is something like 6-24 in his last 30 starts, all you need is a guy to hand the ball off to McFadden and Bush 35 times per game.  I’m sure McNabb could have fit right in with that team.

The Raiders have drafted all these crazy fast WR’s to make sure they had a vertical passing game.  Isn’t Carson Palmer the Anti-Vertical Passing game QB?  Darrius Heyward-Bey, Denarius Moore, Jacoby and Louis Murphy could contend for an Olympic medal in the 4×100 meter dash.   That’s where a low risk guy like McNabb would have fit in perfectly.  McNabb has been overthrowing his speedy WR’s since 2003.  At least this crew could catch up to those deep balls.

I honestly don’t see how this trade has any upside at all for the Raiders.  But what I do see is that the Bengals played hardball with a crybaby, and they won.  Good for them.  It’s about time something went right for this franchise.  With two 1st round picks next year, the Bengals can now build through the draft, and spend more money now that they have rid themselves of one of the worst contracts in football.

For the Raiders, there is only ope way this can work out positively.  Get to the Super Bowl.  Is that going to happen?  Probably not.

**Update**    QB Carson Palmer signed a restructured four-year contract with the Raiders that will pay him $2.5 million for the rest of this year, $12.5 million in 2012, $13 million in 2013 and $15 million in 2014, the NFL Network is reporting. – 10/19/2011