Pete Prisco ranks NFL starting QBs

[*Nately120*]

(06-03-2016, 01:45 PM)SHRacerX Wrote: I think your rant is interesting, but maybe a bit misdirected.  I think the big loser here is one Carson Palmer.  He couldn't, wouldn't play for a team with such a mentality for losing, and a second round QB comes in and takes them to the playoffs. 

Meh, Dalton was a 2nd rounder who took a 4-12 teams to the playoffs and Palmer was a washed-up bargain bin vet who took a team with two 5-win seasons in 3 years to the NFC Championship game.  You and I have had obvious disagreements about Palmer that are never changing, but it's not like Palmer left Cincy to coast into a bed of roses.

My point is that people seem to really like to over-exaggerate how awful the Bengals were after 2010 and I think 2010 looked really bad because we had a brutal schedule...seriously, we played:

Patiots (14-2)
Falcons (13-3)
Steelers (12-4)
Steelers (12-4)
Ravens (12-4)
Ravens (12-4)
Jets (11-5)
Saints (11-5)
Colts (10-6)
Chargers (9-7)

...and we lost to some crap teams (and beat 2 good ones), just to hedge our bets.  That schedule probably would have led to the 2011 squad being something around 4-12, too.  It's just night and day from what the 2011 team faced SO I was never all that convinced we learned to be winners again overnight.  Plus we dumped an over the hill pair or WRs and got a top WR prospect, we FINALLY ditched Brat, we had the same HC and Zimmer returning, Benson stopped fumbling as much, and the defense pulled it together mostly because we didn't play 9 teams with 10-14 wins in 2011.

It was clear changes needed to be made after 2010, but not playing an absurdly difficult schedule sure helped.