Fantasy Football Pre-Season Quarterback Rankings: #4 - Carson Palmer, Cincinnati Bengals

#4. Carson Palmer, Cincinnati Bengals

Some of the analysts out there will tell you that Carson Palmer is not a top 5 quarterback selection entering the 2008-2009 NFL Fantasy Football season.

Those analysts are full of crap.

The fact of the matter is that Mr. Carson Palmer is likely to have a much better season than he had last year, where he finished only 9th among NFL quarterbacks in fasntasy points.

First of all, his 9th place finish among quarterbacks in fantasy football points can be a tad bit misleading. He finished a mere 1.5 points/game behind #5 ranked Drew Brees, and among the top 9 quarterbacks in fantasy football last year, he was by far on the worst team, and had the worst defense of them all, thereby preventing him from having as many quality possessions as some of the quarterbacks who ranked above him.

Second of all, the Bengals offensive line was severely beat up last season, as was running back, Rudi Johnson, who’s production from the backfield was at career lows. The lack of a stable offensive line and backfield production, put a lot of pressure on Carson to face pass-oriented defensive sets, and it made it hard for the Bengals to produce their typical number of big plays.

Of course, some of the blame does have to fall on the shoulders of Carson Palmer. He did throw a lot of interceptions (20), and he didn’t come through in the red zone like he should have, producing only 26 touchdown passes.

But all of the true predictors of his performance point to a much better 2008 NFL Fantasy Football Season. Despite his high amount of interceptions, only 3.5% of his passes were actually intercepted. And even though his line was at 75% of its usual best for most of the year, he was still only sacked about once a game (17 sacks in total). On top of that, his yards per passing attempt are very high (7.18 yards/throw). And most importantly, that knee injury from the 2006 playoffs appears to be a total non-issue, as he was the only quarterback to dropback for the Bengals all season long.

So listen to those other guys if you want to, but Carson Palmer is undoubtedly projected by me to be a top 5 quarterback entering this fantasy football season, and he is #4 on our list.

#3. Peyton Manning, Indianapolis Colts
#5. Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints

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