Black Sunday

As Wildcard Weekend approached, I was having a tough time deciding who my teams would be for this weekend. I know, go ahead with the "feel free to jump on the bandwagon" stuff, but that's the great thing about the NFL Playoffs and fantasy football. You see, after 17 weeks of exercising your thumb on Sundays ("Somebody up there loves you...DIRECTV"), you know what teams you like to watch. Therefore, I entered this weekend looking forward to three games...and really, really looking forward to one-the Steelers at Bengals.
I'm not sure who deserves more credit between Marvin Lewis and Carson Palmer for turning around that franchise, but I do know this-I love Carson Palmer. So I made the Bengals, Chad Johnson's grill and all, my team for the playoffs.
I'm catching the end of the SIU-Bradley game (in which Matt Shaw had a nasty dunk-more on he and SIU in a later entry) and as I flip to CBS I'm schoolgirl giddy in anticipation of Palmer's playoff debut. I'm even feeling good for the Bengals fans. Imagine watching that team throughout the '90s and now this day has arrived. What a feeling, huh?
Well, you all know how the story goes from here. His first pass and... season over. As bad as I felt, I can only imagine how actual Bengal fans felt. Talk about buzzkill. Here's the thing, I don't think it was in any way intentional, it was just a bad break (no pun intended), but why Palmer? He is, I believe, a legit good guy. He never complained about being taken by the Bengals, who had sucked for God knows how many years. He isn't a spotlight seeker. He just goes and plays. He recently signed an extention to keep him in Cincy for basically life and now this? It's not right, but sometimes bad things happen to good people. Why is that? I guess we know why it is, but it's still unfortunate.
Best wishes to Carson on a speedy comeback.