Carson Palmer to Raiders

Being passive-aggressive never usually works. Two years ago, in my uber-competitive fantasy football league, one dude decided to not check the internet for a couple weeks (crazy, right?), and bingo bango, it indirectly robbed me of about eight Franklins. So I dusted off my passive-aggressive fitted hat, put it on (backwards, slightly to the right) and revved up a campaign to kick his ass out of the league. This lasted about 15 months. It took another instance of the guy failing to field a complete roster for enough people to hop on my passive-aggressive train. So in the end, it worked, but everyone in the league was basically like, "wow, this kid is insane," whenever they thought of me.

Just this past year, Jorge Posada inverted his member by taking himself out of the Yankee batting order. The disgruntled Posada was incensed at being placed in the 9th position. He sat on the bench that night, looking glum and detached from the team, while his wife posted updates on her Twitter that claimed her husband was injured. Do that in Kansas City, the story will die out by the end of the night. Do that in the "I need to write anything newsworthy to save my job" media frenzy that is New York, and it lingers, which it did. Almost nobody blamed manager Joe Girardi. Posada looked like a third-grader in the eyes of most fans, which is remarkable considering he had the support of esteemed teammates such as Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera.

But Carson Palmer? If the NFL was a high school yearbook, Carson Palmer would take home the "Most P-A" superlative in a landslide. Faced with having to lead the inept Cincinnati Bengals under the direction of inept owner Mike Brown and inept head coach Marvin Lewis, with the possibility of playing with inept Wide Receiver Chad Ochocino, Palmer demanded a trade. When that didn't work, the guy RETIRED. Just stopped playing. He said he wouldn't come back unless he was traded.

Do you understand the gravity of such an act? It's like if you brought your basketball to the local court, had an argument with another players, and you, Mr. Drama Queen, took your ball home so the other guys couldn't play. Well guess what, maybe the kids wouldn't have been able to keep playing that day, but sooner or later, they'll find another basketball and play without you. In the Bengals' case, this looked like it was happening, and I couldn't have been more satisfied. The Bengals traded Ochocinco and drafted super stud A.J. Green to replace him. They drafted Andy Dalton to take snaps under center to replace Palmer. And very quietly, they have won 4 out of 6 games this season. Not bad.

But lo and behold, the Oakland Raiders entered the picture by losing their quarterback, Jason Campbell, to a likely season-ending injury. Desperate to end a nine year playoff drought, the Raiders traded an outright-first AND a conditional-first round pick to the Bengals for that ginger Carson Palmer. The passive-aggressive former star quarterback got his wish, a ticket out of Cincy. What a stroke of luck. When Jason Campbell receives a bottle of fine liquor this week, he'll know who to thank.