Carson Palmer : Official Blog

Injury Update and Thanks

Thank you all so much for the support and encouragement that you have provided to me and Shae since my injury in the Steelers game.  You are truly the best fans in the NFL and I am sorry that this season ended earlier than we all would have liked.  Rest assured, however, that the entire team is going to be working hard this off-season to improve and we will be a better team next year. 

In terms of my injury, I will be completely ready for the 2006 NFL season and am anxious to get back out on the field with my teammates.  I had surgery in Houston and am doing my rehab in Orange County, California.  This is going to be a long, grueling process, but knowing that you all will be waiting for me at the Jungle provides me with great inspiration.  In the meantime, hopefully we can resign Jon Kitna, a fantastic quarterback and person, who will expertly guide our offense during the off-season. 

As you all know, I signed a long-term deal with the Bengals shortly before my injury.  I am very grateful to the Brown family and the Bengals organization for showing their faith in me as the team’s quarterback and leader.  One of the reasons that I signed a long-term deal is because Shae and I love Cincinnati both in terms of its team and community.  Thanks to everyone for making us feel so welcome and we look forward to coming back to Cincinnati once the weather warms up a little bit!      

I also want to give a quick thank you to Trey Selman at Selman Chevrolet for providing me with such an awesome car, John Unzicker from the Northern Illinois Flight Center for allowing me to fly in comfort, and Standards of Excellence for their great grill that we will be using often in the upcoming months.

Keep the postings coming as I really enjoy reading them during my downtime back here in Cali.

CP

The Bye Week

Hello Bengals fans.

Thank you for visiting and posting messages on my website.  This is a great way to interact with the fans during this exciting season and I will keep the blogs coming.  In regard to one comment posted by Shamrock 11, I will put a picture of Homer on the website so everyone can see what an awesome dog he is.

I had a great bye week, getting plenty of rest while enjoying some time with my wife, friends, and family.  Shae and I traveled to New York where we had some fun with Kevin Walters and Chris Perry.  My first introduction to the Big Apple was when I went there for the Heisman Trophy and then the NFL Draft.  The latter was my first official day as a Bengal so it was cool going back there with my Bengal teammates now.  There is no doubt that New York operates at a little different pace than Southern California and Cincinnati.

I also got to go back to Orange County where I played a round of golf at Torrey Pines.  I have wanted to play there for a long time and we had a great day on a beautiful course.  I was a little rusty and shot an 85, but that was good enough for a couple of skins!  I also had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with Steve Young.  We both have the same agent – Dave Dunn of Athletes First – so we met at their offices before going to a field to talk football for a couple of hours.  It was an honor to spend time with a Hall-of-Fame quarterback who is also so active in the community and with charities.

After California, I went to El Paso to see my brother Jordan play.  That was also a great experience as UTEP stomped Texas Southern and Jordan became the all-time career passing leader with 6,625 passing yards. As a result of the win, UTEP is ranked in the top 25 again and they appear headed towards a good bowl game.  I love that when I am in El Paso, people simply refer to me as Jordan Palmer’s older brother. That is awesome as he has worked so hard and truly deserves all of his success.  I am fired up for him, Coach Price, and all of his teammates.

The bye week is over and we have the Colts coming to town this weekend. It is great to be playing at home again in front of you crazy fans and we are counting on you to make some noise when Peyton and his offense are on the field.  They are obviously a great team, but this is a big opportunity for our team and our city to put forth our best effort and try to win a pretty important ballgame.  I am really looking forward to seeing and hearing all of you at the Jungle on Sunday.  I hope Amanda (who posted a nice message) and her two-year old daughter enjoy the game as I would love to give a good birthday present to Kevin who was also kind enough to post a message on my site.

In closing, a quick shout out to 1013 back at USC.   I would love to keep typing but Goose is coming to town this weekend to eat all of my food so I have to go food shopping at Meijer.   

 

CP 

Ravens Week

Hello Bengals fans,

Welcome to my website.  This has been a great year for the Bengals, but we still have a long ways to go. There is a lot of work left to do and we need our fans every step of the way.  So please keep coming to the stadium to support our efforts.  You make a real difference on Sundays and I know teams aren’t thrilled to play in the Jungle.  Awesome.

This week we hit the road to play the Ravens.  Baltimore has a great team and a very dangerous defense. They are very well coached and have a ton of talent.  Add all this to the fact that it is a division road game, and you know we will have a war on our hands.  It would be great to go into the bye week with a win, but we know that we are going into a real battle.  I know we will give it everything we have.

Everything is great off the field.  I want to give a special thanks to all the Bengals fans that have helped my wife Shaelyn and me with our charitable efforts.  The auction winners from our golf tournament watched the Green Bay game from our suite and we are so grateful for their donations to help the Boys & Girls Club.  I also want to thank Dean Gregory at the Montgomery Inn for hosting my friends and family there earlier this month.  We enjoyed some of the best ribs that I have ever had.  Great place and better people.

Thanks to everyone who is participating in the Carson Palmer Pledge Program to raise money for charities back in California and here in Cincinnati.  We have a great team and our offense is doing all we can to throw as many touchdowns as possible. Thanks to everyone for their support.  If other fans want to join the pledge team, they can either pick up pledge cards at any of the great Huntington Bank branches (hello Kendra!) or they can call Jessica at Athletes First at 949-475-2222. 

Finally – congratulations and good luck to my little brother Jordan who became the

all- time leader for total offense at UTEP this past Saturday in a win against Rice.  He has a big game this weekend against Tulsa and Home and I will be cheering for him. Talk to you next week.

- CP 

Welcome!

Thanks for visiting my official blog. This is my very first entry.

With it, my goal is to document the most intriguing aspects of my life and share them with you, my fans and the public.

I hope you'll enjoy the stories and insights into life in the NFL, as well as my own life in general.