Pete Prisco of CBS Sportsline ranked the top 50 players in the NFL. Not surprisingly, both Carson Palmer and Chad Johnson were on the list. What may be a little surprising is how high Carson Palmer was according to a member of the national media. According to the list, Palmer is the eighth best player in the NFL and the third best quarterback behind Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. WDR is glad to see that the Bengals' woes have not completely overshadowed everyone's assessment of Palmer. To Bengal fans, there is little doubt that Palmer has better skills than Roethlisberger, Romo, Eli Manning, etcetera...but often times, nationally, more attention is understandably given to the QBs consistently making the playoffs. If only we could get the same production out of the running game as the Steelers, Cowboys and Giants...and have defenses like those teams.
Chad also ranked 28th on the list and the three sentence summary in the article is pretty much on target: "He isn't nearly as good as he thinks he is. But he's still pretty damn good. He does have a tendency to disappear in big games."
Not surprisingly, there were zero Bengals defensive players on the list. In fact, other than maybe Takeo Spikes a couple of seasons, can anyone think of another in the past 18 years? Come to think of it, before the arrival of Carson and Chad, did we have any players (offensive or defensive) aside from Spikes, Corey Dillon and Carl Pickens who were in the top 50 for one season during this time?
One final point...T.J. Houshmandzadeh was not on the list, which is probably accurate, however, he didn't make the "Just missed" list at the bottom and he probably should have considering Wes Welker was the last ranked receiver in the Top 50. Welker had 112 catches for 1175 yards and 8 touchdowns last year while TJ had 112 for 1143 yards and 12 touchdowns.
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