Memo From the Foregone Conclusion Dep't

[HoosierCat]

http://www.bengals.com/news/news.asp?story_id=5441

Bring on Kansas Stinky!

[TJJackson]

Uh, ya think? :-)

[HoTbOy]

LJohnson won't be a factor if the Chiefs are playing from behind, which I think they will some time in the 2nd qtr, thanx to the arm of CPalmer...

[Stripes]

The entire team was playing with a fire. They'll be doing it again come week one. The Chiefs are screwed.

[ChadJohnson-85]

Wasn't there a ton of trolls saying Carson wouldn't start for the first four games of the regular season?

[ArmyBengal]

A lot of people (myself included) thought to error on the side of caution is the samrt way to go, but Carson put a lot of that talk to rest last night. I'm not going to say we now romp the Chiefs, especially playing AT Kansas City, but the odds should be in our favor with a healthy Carson. I want to see him get more playing time next game !!!

WHODEY !!!

[HoosierCat]

Wasn't there a ton of trolls saying Carson wouldn't start for the first four games of the regular season?

Well, it looks like he will start at KC, but I wouldn't declare him out of the woods yet. If you watched closely last night, you saw that the first thing they did when Carson got pulled was to drop a big bag of ice on the knee. A few minutes later he was walking around with an ice pack strapped on.

I expected that. The knee may be medically cleared, but "medically cleared" and "fully healed" are two different things, and it will probably take another offseason's worth of rest and rehab to really get it back to 100% (or as close to as it will ever get). Until then, he's in the same boat Warrick was: he's going to have to deal with swelling and tenderness week in and week out. That could create problems later in the season.

Hopefully the Bengals jump out to a big fat lead in the division, the rest of our division rivals collapse, and we can do what Philly did a couple years back and rest the starters for the last couple weeks of the regular season!

[Tasher]

Wasn't there a ton of trolls saying Carson wouldn't start for the first four games of the regular season?

Well, it looks like he will start at KC, but I wouldn't declare him out of the woods yet. If you watched closely last night, you saw that the first thing they did when Carson got pulled was to drop a big bag of ice on the knee. A few minutes later he was walking around with an ice pack strapped on.

I expected that. The knee may be medically cleared, but "medically cleared" and "fully healed" are two different things, and it will probably take another offseason's worth of rest and rehab to really get it back to 100% (or as close to as it will ever get). Until then, he's in the same boat Warrick was: he's going to have to deal with swelling and tenderness week in and week out. That could create problems later in the season.

Hopefully the Bengals jump out to a big fat lead in the division, the rest of our division rivals collapse, and we can do what Philly did a couple years back and rest the starters for the last couple weeks of the regular season!

That is very typical precautionary action after activity following an injury.

After I run, I ice my shins to prevent shin splints because I have had problems with them in the past, it just ensures that additional problems don't crop up. I expect that Carson will ice the knee all year and possibly into next.

[derekshank]

My knee still gets stiff 5 years after my surgery. Palmer's isn't 100% healed yet of course... but don't expect him to stop icing his knee even next year. It's just what he's going to do. It helps. Pitchers ice their arms after every start... it's precautionary as much as anything. So I wouldn't read too much, or too little into it.

He had an injury... so he's not at his best health wise... but it also didn't appear to hamper him too much. In my opinion, the real issue will be if he starts to get tired at the end of a game early in the season. Other than that... I'm expecting to see the same old Palmer.

[ArmyBengal]

Yep, his conditioning later in games is what I'm wondering about as well. I'm sure he's working the issue !!!

WHODEY !!!

[HoosierCat]

Yeah, Willie passed a comment on bengals.com about Palmer trying to speed things up in the huddle. Anderson described it as a "tired" huddle, meaning not quite yet up to condition. So it sounds like everyone still has some work to do.