FREE Sporting News Article on Cincy's QB's

[BengalszoneBilly]

The following article is about the best I've seen on this issue so far. Here's the link:

http://msn.foxsports.com/story/2572694

Or if you don't need to see the photo's that go with it, read it below.

Training camp preview: Palmer's developing days.

This could be happening on any field in the country. One guy is running routes. Another guy is throwing footballs to him. Sometimes they connect, sometimes they don't. After one failed attempt, the thrower and the receiver huddle up. The quarterback uses one hand as a chalkboard and the index finger on his other hand as chalk, mapping out a course to run. "The ball will arrive there at the same time you do," is the apparent promise.

Separating this Norman Rockwell moment from others just like it is that this field neighbors Paul Brown Stadium, the quarterback is Carson Palmer, the first overall pick in the 2003 draft, and the receiver is Chad Johnson, a blur in tiger stripes.

TSN's CAMP PREVIEW

With two-a-days approaching rapidly, Sporting News gets you primed for your camp visits with its annual Training Camp Preview issue.

There's nothing simple about taking over as starting quarterback of an NFL team. But there's nothing complicated about it, either. Take all of the talk about pressure and schemes and stunts and routes and blitzes and the speed of the game, and know that all of that is important. But not as important as this: Palmer's success in taking command of the Bengals in training camp will be based on tiny moments like his hand-diagrammed play.

Simply put, he will spend training camp learning where his receivers will be. His receivers will spend it learning where Palmer expects them to be. Of course, there are more details to learn than could fit on Palmer's palm; both elements -- knowing where receivers will be and receivers being there -- are described in full in a huge playbook.

For his part, Johnson promises to make Palmer's transition from potential to performance as easy as possible. Johnson is a blazing playmaker ready to make the leap from emerging star to elite player, and it likely will be Palmer's passes that carry him there. Johnson's nickname is "7-Eleven" "because I'm always open," he says. He waves off questions about breaking in a new quarterback. "His job is very easy. Drop back and throw."

If it were really that simple, any meathead who could hit a moving target with a football would be a quarterback in the NFL. There's much more to being a quarterback than just throwing. Palmer will deal with numerous other factors in his first training camp as an NFL starter: working side-by-side with the man whose job he took, dealing with enormous expectations, establishing himself as a leader. And he'll throw some passes and get comfortable in an altered offense while he's at it.

The Jon Kitna factor:

Jon Kitna's response to losing his job to Palmer has been so gracious and classy that Palmer hardly knows how to thank him. It would be easy for Kitna to be angry; he played a major role in lifting the team from awful to competitive last year. Kitna played every offensive snap and was the league's comeback player of the year.

But this offseason, coach Marvin Lewis named Palmer the starter. "We've got to be able to throw the ball effectively, and I think Carson gives us the ability to push the ball down the field," Lewis says.

Rather than pout or demand his release, Kitna instead embraced the move and signed a contract extension through 2005. In private, Kitna called Palmer to offer the support of him and his family. In public, Kitna told reporters, "I'm going to do everything I can to make sure he's as ready as possible every Sunday. I'm excited to see him play."

More than just a supporter, Kitna is Palmer's friend. They compete like brothers on and off the field. "I feel like every day I've got to outcompete Jon, outdo him in every drill, be faster than him, be quicker on my reads, throw better balls," Palmer says. "If it's not like that, you get lackadaisical about it, and you don't improve."

There's more at stake than the starting quarterback position. Whoever throws the first ball that hits the ground has to pay for the next round of golf. (The two compete on the golf course, too, though Kitna is so much better he gives Palmer eight strokes per round. Explains Palmer: "I always say: His advantage is he's been in the league eight years, and he should be good at golf. This is only my second.") There also is the trash-can accuracy contest, the loser of which is on the hook for breakfast the next day.

The pressure factor:

Though the Bengals missed the playoffs last year after losing their last two games and finishing 8-8, there's a buzz about the team that's as thick as the humidity coming off the Ohio River. For the first seven days after the team's ticket packages went on sale, the phone lines at Paul Brown Stadium were so busy that they essentially shut down. Lines of fans hungry for a winner snaked around the stadium. First-day ticket package sales surpassed the total ticket package sales for 2002 and were 10 times the first-day sales last year. The season still is two months away, but if fans want to attend any of the first four home games, they'll have to buy season tickets. Cincinnati is as excited about the Bengals as it was when Ickey Woods shuffled his way into America's short-term memory.

With that excitement has come higher expectations and, it would seem, more pressure. But Lewis and Palmer say there's so much pressure on every team every season that more doesn't mean much. It's like falling off the Chrysler Building instead of the Empire State Building -- either way, you just hope to land on Regis Philbin.

"It comes with the territory," Palmer says. "There's going to be tons of pressure on you, always, on and off the football field."

True enough, but to whom much is given, much is expected. Considering how much Palmer has been given and the team's success last season, the expectations surely are that the Bengals will make the playoffs. If you think that's the overbearing media heaping unfair expectations on Palmer, consider his expectations: "I expect us to win every game. You can't go in ever thinking you might not win. I know it's very lofty and a little too high expectations, but if you don't go in expecting to win them all, what are you trying to get out of the season? You can't go in and hope you win half your games."

Palmer is prepared for the firestorm that will result when he plays poorly. Before winning the Heisman Trophy as a senior at USC, he was routinely and harshly criticized. He has had his job called for before. "I saw him fight so much adversity," says Norm Chow, his coordinator for two years at USC. "He never complained. It was a non-issue for him. That part of his personality will surely allow him to fight through that."

Palmer won't be expected to carry the load himself. Lewis has constructed a potentially strong offense, with the explosive Johnson at wideout and running back Rudi Johnson battling rookie Chris Perry for carries. The team also added a new starting guard, Bobbie Williams, to an already strong line and traded talented but disgruntled tailback Corey Dillon. With all that talent should come a more explosive offense.

"In order for us to be a better team in '04, we've got to do new things," Lewis says. "We've got to make big plays. We've got to force ourself to push the football down the field and keep the pressure on the defense."

Palmer can make every throw. He has more arm strength than Kitna, so the offense surely will push the ball downfield more. Palmer's year on the bench -- getting accustomed to the NFL life, seeing the greater speed of the game, learning about schemes and coverages -- will help him as he picks up the offense's new wrinkles in camp. Having Palmer as the clear-cut starter will make it easier for coordinator Bob Bratkowski to install a system around Palmer as opposed to installing a broader system while the two quarterbacks competed for the job.

"I think it's difficult to say you can equally split reps and compete to be a starting quarterback," Lewis says. "I don't recall one time where that's ever worked in the NFL."

Texans quarterbacks coach Greg Roman likens learning an offense to putting together a 1,000-piece puzzle. A quarterback has to learn how each piece fits together. He says training camp is vitally important for a young quarterback, as it has been for the Texans' David Carr, the No. 1 pick overall in 2002.

"As a quarterback, it's just such a great opportunity to get used to the speed of the game, and it's a time to identify what you're capable of doing," Roman says. "It's also a great time for the quarterback and receivers to build a rapport with each other, to learn the subtleties of each other."

The huddle-presence factor:

One advantage Palmer has over most quarterbacks is his size. His is an unassuming bigness. He doesn't have massive arms, legs or shoulders. He isn't particularly cut. He doesn't look huge until he stands next to someone. Then you realize he's 6-5, 245 -- at least. "We tested our guys in the 40," says Lewis, "and he timed like he was a running back."

Palmer's greatest asset is his arm. He has shown in practice he can throw the ball great distances and with great precision. But all NFL starting quarterbacks can throw, and getting goose-pimply about practice throws is the equivalent of boasting about a 5 o'clock hitter. One team official says Palmer can throw the ball 70 yards; watch him for one practice, and you wonder whether that is an understatement.

As much as he needs to show a thorough knowledge of the offense, develop timing with his receivers and make pinpoint throws, Palmer also has to show his teammates he has the chutzpah -- known as huddle presence -- to lead the team. Huddle presence is the quarterback's ability to run the team, and it involves shaking off a forearm to the face, telling a receiver he blew a route and calmly running a 2-minute offense -- not to mention getting a play off on time when some play verbiage is as long as a Montana highway.

On this point, training camp is the training wheels. Palmer won't get jacked upside the head or slammed to the turf in practice like he will in a game. "When he comes back to the huddle, the way he responds is critical," says Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Nolan says. "You can't see that in practice."

Chow attended a Bengals practice in May. He noticed the difference in Palmer's huddle presence immediately. "What I saw in Carson was a huge jump in maturity in how he handled the huddle. You could see the respect from the other guys."

Palmer will tread a fine line between being a leader and being led. On the one hand, he's the starting quarterback. On the other hand, he never has played a down in the NFL, and the team, as Palmer points out, already has established leaders.

Palmer is coachable and eager to learn from veterans. Maybe too eager. Last year, he fell for every rookie prank in the book. The specific pranks will remain secret so subsequent rookies can get punk'd. Says one highly placed Bengals source: "We can't write too much about it, or we won't be able to get our new guys." There goes the closing anecdote about snipe hunting.

So what kind of leader will Palmer be? It's the most important question of camp, one that partly will be answered this summer and partly will be answered throughout his career.

For now, Palmer's friendly personality -- he's from California but you'd swear he was from Peoria -- makes him popular. Who wouldn't like a guy who named his dog after Homer Simpson? He never will be a rah-rah leader, but that doesn't mean teammates won't look up to him. He's a lead-by-example type who knows better than to try to act like somebody he isn't. "I just need to be in position where I can control the ball, make smart decisions and do what I'm coached up to do."

For Palmer, training camp will be as simple as a hand-drawn play. Be himself -- and get the ball downfield.

Matt Crossman is an associate editor for Sporting News. Email him at mcrossman@sportingnews.com.

[Tiger Stripes]

great read, thanks billy!

[redsfan2]

Great article, but this is still going to be a hot button topic going into the regular season and beyond.

Every interception and 65 + yard bomb is going to be accompanied by a chorus of " I told ya so " from their respective camps.

The difference of opinions and the tenacity to which people hold on to them has as much to do with Klingler .... Smith ... and the last decade plus of losing as it does with Palmer. Maybe more. People are absolutely not ready to believe ....... or they are desperately grasping for anything that's positive.

As positive as I've been about Palmer, he's only one cog on the wheel. It's going to take a lot more than him to get the job done, and that's where coach Lewis comes in. If anything, there's a lot more pressure on him than on any of the players. He gave Cincinnati a taste of winning last year, and now people are expecting more. If he delivers the winning season, then he's on Easy Street. If he does worse than the 8 and 8 of last year, he'll be a pariah. Palmer will get booed, but Lewis will be hated as the guy that put him in there and promised so much and then let them down.

You still see it from the free agents that come into town and from the fans of other teams that show up here in the ' Zone. We need a winning season not only this year but next as well to shake of the image that we've built up ........ or dug ourselves into. That's the REAL sore spot ...... the controversy over Palmer is just the symptom .... that's all.

[Barbarian]

Wasn't Klingler also known for "airing it out"???

Someone correct me here if I'm wrong. I don't mind.