Raiders quarterback Carson Palmer knows he’s going to get booed when he returns to Cincinnati for the first time since threatening to retire and being traded.
But he said simply that he thought his Bengals career had run its course, and it was time to move on.
When asked why he decided that time had come after eight seasons, Palmer declined to get too specific
“Just a culmination of things,” Palmer said, via Joe Reedy of the Cincinnati Enquirer. “Some things that I had learned that ownership, . . . just some things that built up over time and it was just time for a change.”
Palmer said he didn’t want to elaborate, when pressed on completing that thought.
“It was time,” he said. “Anytime you are somewhere for five, six, seven, eight years, sometimes it is just time for a fresh start, a change, something new and that’s obviously what I thought and obviously the ownership there didn’t – until the last second.”
Asked if he was better off now than two years ago — which is a reasonable question as the quarterback of a 3-7 team who watched rookie Andy Dalton take his old team to the playoffs — Palmer said he was.
“Yeah. My last year there was physically, mentally and — really, mentally just draining,” he said. “That’s part of the reason it was just time.”
The Bengals fans might boo, but holding firm was the right play for owner Mike Brown, who took advantage of a desperate Raiders team, and the Bengals are clearly better off for it.
