[quote]Crossing off Jordan
By GEOFF HOBSON
January 23, 2007

Posted: 6:15 a.m.


Jordan Palmer passed for 3595 yards and 26 TDs as a senior at UTEP. (Getty Images)
MOBILE, Ala. - The differences are as subtle as an audible because to see one Palmer on the field is to look in a mirror of mannerisms.

Jordan Palmer, the more outgoing of the two, breezed through the players’ hotel here Monday night at the Senior Bowl and said hello by offering offhandedly that he had to race to an interview with the New England Patriots. But not before the Texans stopped him to schedule an appointment of their own.

“Definitely,” Palmer said with his brother’s accessibility, but that is where the comparison stops.

Unlike four years ago when Carson Palmer came to town as the Heisman Trophy winner and Vegas favorite to be the overall No. 1 draft pick, Jordan knows he could be drafted by any team on any day.

Bill Palmer, their father, remembers back in ’03 when there was talk the Bears or Ravens might trade up to get Carson. And the Bengals at No. 1. But that was it. There was more media interest down here in Carson than team interest. Just the opposite with Jordan.

On the Monday night of Carson’s Senior Bowl in 2003, the Bengals didn’t have a consensus yet on taking him with the first pick in the draft because they didn’t get a head coach until the next night when Marvin Lewis was introduced across Mobile Bay in Point Clear, Ala.

But even though the Bengals now need to develop a young backup quarterback behind Carson, there looks to already be a consensus among the club, the Palmer parents, and the kids themselves that it wouldn’t be the best thing to select Jordan.

“Selfishly I would love to be around him,” Carson said Monday from California. “But I want to be the quarterback of this team for a long time and I want the same thing for him. I want him to be the quarterback of the future for some franchise. I know that’s what he wants and that’s what I want for him.”

Although the Bengals drafted the Griffins in the ‘70s out of Ohio State, they have a track record of being concerned about having brothers on the same roster. Jordan already went on record with his mother long ago.

“Jordan has told me he loves thinking about playing against (Carson),” Danna Palmer said. “Both boys are that way. They played their best games playing against their friends in basketball or football, whatever it was.”

“Carson’s too young to think about transitioning down that way,” said Bill Palmer, standing next to his wife in the bustling Mobile Convention Center. “He’s young enough. He’ll be around for awhile.”

So will this class of quarterbacks. As the Palmers talked to Jordan after he came back from lunch with the South team, the latest Heisman Trophy winner, Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith, signed autographs as he walked. Notre Dame’s Brady Quinn was introduced to Browns head coach Romeo Crennel by his agent, Ken Kremer in what could be a preview of Draft Day.

Jordan won’t get drafted that high. If the question following Carson into his Senior Bowl was if he’d go first, the question for his brother is if he’ll go the first day in the first three rounds. Frank Coyle of draftinsiders.com is like many who don’t think he will, but he also thinks Jordan can play his way into the last Saturday in April with a good performance here on the last Saturday in January.

“He has the measurables that you look for in an NFL quarterback,” Coyle said after the South practiced Monday. “He certainly has the size, arm strength, and he can drive the ball down the field and find the holes. He’s got some technique that needs to be addressed with his footwork as far as positioning to improve his accuracy. But he’s a kid with a good NFL caliber quarterbacks coach that can really have some upside as an NFL passer.”

Bengals quarterbacks coach Ken Zampese, the detail guy in his relationship with Carson Palmer, couldn’t help note the same on-field mannerisms as Jordan worked behind Big Game MVP Chris Leak of Florida and ahead of Houston’s Kevin Kolb. If anything, Jordan is slightly taller at 6-5 and slightly heavier at 235 pounds.

“They’re definitely from the same family,” Zampese said. “Both are big strong guys that throw the ball. He does a nice job getting it out of his hands. I think he’s got a good chance to have a good career in the league.”

His last numbers at Texas-El Paso are solid. He completed better than 65 percent of his passes for 3,595 yards and 26 touchdowns against 14 interceptions, but Jordan knows he’s got a lot of intangibles working for him simply because he’s been able to soak up his brother’s experiences.

He watched Carson play in this game four years ago and as he left the practice field Monday he planned to call him to tell him how practice went, “if he hasn’t left a message for me already.”

“I told him to have fun and forget about all the stuff going on around you,” Carson Palmer said. “I think it knocked a lot of guys off their feet when they came out to practice down there and saw all the owners and coaches out here. It’s one thing to see Bill Parcells or Bob Kraft on TV, but to see them 10 feet away from you taking notes on everything you do is something else.”

Jordan didn’t think he had a good day throwing the ball (“But I’m like him. I’d say that if I hit every pass. We’re both hard on ourselves,” he said.) in front of the 49ers coaching staff, but Carson also gave him an idea of the meetings and what’s expected in practice.

“I think what this is all about is going into your first meeting on Sunday night and being able to come out and run a team drill,” Jordan Palmer said, “and Chris Leak did a good job of that today.”

The rain and chilly 50-degree temperatures made it a lousy day to throw with new receivers, but Jordan showed the trait that Carson admires and wouldn’t mind having some of it rub off.

“We’ve got very different personalities. He’s loud, he’s more outgoing, he’s very talkative,” Carson said. “He’s a phenomenal leader. He does a great job fitting in with guys. You’re just always hearing his college coaches raving about what a great team player he is. I go to him at times and he gives me great advice on something I might ask.”

Bill Palmer believes Carson has become more assertive as a leader and there can be no doubt after Monday’s rip job of the Bengals’ ninth arrest, which came on the heels of Carson’s final game news conference in which he challenged his team to play like a team.

“Partially,” said Carson when asked if he’d been taking notes from Jordan, and Bill has observed, “I’ve seen him change. (The Bengals) keep talking about leadership. Leadership is more than running around yelling.”

Danna Palmer has recently seen the dynamics of the relationship change as Jordan gets older.

“He goes to Jordan to ask him some things and Jordan is not afraid to say to him what he thinks should be going on,” she said. “He’s just not the little brother at this point in their relationship.”

The idea was never to turn them into the same guy. Jordan played the violin for 10 years and was mainly known as a basketball player until he began playing quarterback his senior year in high school.

“The smartest decision he ever made was to go to a different college,” said Bill Palmer of Jordan’s move not to follow Carson to USC. “If he had gone to SC or even another Pac 10 school, I think the comparisons would have really made it tough on him. He’s done his own thing.”

But if their parents are prouder of one thing more than their boys throwing for more college yards than Peyton and Eli Manning, it’s that they have formed a mutual admiration society. Jordan’s bio lists Carson as his favorite athlete. Carson cast one of his Heisman votes for Jordan.

“Jordan is the classic tag-along little brother; learning as he goes,” Bill Palmer said.

But he’s his own guy and relaxed with himself. That is clear when in the middle of Saturday’s teammates and opponents, he hugged his mother and kissed his father goodbye and ran off to practice.

It also served as a reminder of how well it went four years ago when Carson Palmer also arrived with his parents. They spent much of that week talking to Bengals president Mike Brown and his family, as well as Lewis once he was hired, and the Bengals left here feeling extremely good about his background and humility.

Katie and Troy Blackburn, the club’s top negotiators, would also visit with Danna and Bill when they attended Carson’s individual workout in March. Any ill will like Eli Manning with San Diego, or any John Elway trade demand, or any Reggie Bush contract dispute was missing at the top of that ’03 draft when the Bengals quietly signed Palmer a few days before the pick.

“That’s just not Carson’s way. You know that. In the NFL, you play where they tell you,” Bill Palmer said. “We had been told by a lot of people not to have anything to do with the Bengals. That they were quarterback killers and that they were never going to turn it around. But Carson never felt that way. It never occurred to him not to go to the Bengals.

“I think the combination of he and the coaching changes have had the affect there. They’re a contender. They need to fix some things, but they’re a contender.”

Carson Palmer laughed.

“Well, maybe I could be in San Diego,” he joked. “But it’s been great. I love Cincinnati. We know what we have to do. We have to finish it out and win.”

His parents hope Jordan can find as good a fit. But Jon Kitna only plays for one team.

“We’re so happy he didn’t play that first year. That was smart,” Danna said, and Bill believes, “If it had been anybody but Jon I don’t know how well it would have worked because they got along so great.”

Four years later and Carson Palmer is preparing to play in his first Pro Bowl. He’s resting a sore right shoulder lingering from the Indy game, but he fully expects to zip it in Hawaii Feb. 10.

Four years from now Jordan sped to talk to another team.

No audible yet.[/quote]

Anyone else think it would be cool if the Lions drafted Jordan Palmer in like the third or fourth round or something and he learned behind Kitna and then started starting for the Lions in 08?

I had the same thought, then the Bengals and the Lions would meet in the 2012 Super Bowl, with Carson of course, beating his little brother.

[quote name='CJandRudiJ' post='431707' date='Jan 23 2007, 11:23 AM']Anyone else think it would be cool if the Lions drafted Jordan Palmer in like the third or fourth round or something and he learned behind Kitna and then started starting for the Lions in 08?[/quote]

I've seen Jordan play a lot on TV. He has the skills, needs a lot of work. He's a lot like his brother in that respect, although naturally the upside isn't the same. But he could have a solid career. The Texans getting him would be pretty cool (although I suspect they'll end up with Kevin Kolb, the UH QB).

Can Hobknob get any cornier with these headlines?

[quote name='Jamie_B' post='431734' date='Jan 23 2007, 11:52 AM']Can Hobknob get any cornier with these headlines?[/quote]

Only if he wrong something like

Wuh-Air Jordan? (Where Jordan?)

[quote name='Jamie_B' post='431734' date='Jan 23 2007, 12:52 PM']Can Hobknob get any cornier with these headlines?[/quote]

Remember "That's so Raven"?

[quote name='Naptown Bengal' post='431750' date='Jan 23 2007, 01:20 PM']Remember "That's so Raven"? [/quote]


That one I actually laughed at because it was placing the name of a teenage show for girls onto a a football team known for a tough defence. I thought it was a subtal yet funny slight on them.

This one was corny, Del Monte style.

[quote name='Jamie_B' post='431765' date='Jan 23 2007, 01:45 PM']That one I actually laughed at because it was placing the name of a teenage show for girls onto a a football team known for a tough defence. I thought it was a subtal yet funny slight on them.

This one was corny, Del Monte style.[/quote]

The sad part is he actually used it twice. That one, and later on (I think after we beat them in the Thursday game) he wrote another article which was "Bengals just so Raven"