"You can say Carson Palmer quit on his team last year. You can say it and believe it and you might be right. You can good-riddance Palmer out of town. Hire him a limo to the airport.

All of it's OK.

You're a fan.

Marvin Lewis told a Yahoo! writer that Palmer quit on the Bengals.

He can't do that. He's a head coach. Here's what appeared in Les Carpenter's story:

"At what point did Carson quit?" Bengals coach Marvin Lewis asks, repeating a similar question. "At some point last year he decided he didn't want to be here. This didn't happen at the end of the season. There was a point earlier on when he said, 'This isn't the place for me.'

Here's how Lewis explained that to me Thursday:

Players told him after the season that Palmer had quit.

"At some point, in their minds, Carson quit from them. People. . .felt they were trying to right the ship without him. At some point last year, he decided he didn't want to be here."

Maybe so. Lots of players over the years haven't wanted to be here. If Palmer did tank it during the season, he did an OK job handling it. In his last three games as a Bengal, Palmer was 62-for-89 with five touchdown passes and two interceptions.

He threw four TDs the day after Christmas, to beat San Diego. The Bengals finished a bad season by winning two of their last three. So when exactly did Palmer start packing?

If he was out of it mentally during the season, why wasn't something said about it then, when it mattered? Why after the year? Why now?"