RUMOR: Carson Palmer to Seattle for Mid-Round Picks

Don't panic if Seattle doesn't draft a quarterback on Thursday - it might just mean that they already have one coming.

Rumors are heating up that Cincinnati QB Carson Palmer has a trade deal in the works with the Seattle Seahawks, and that the asking price is incredibly generous: a 5th-round draft pick and a 3rd-round (at the highest) pick in 2012, and a contract significantly less than either his current contract in Cincinnati or the contract that Matt Hasselbeck asked the Seahawks for.

Your immediate reaction is one of mocking incredulity. Those fanboys again. No way that would ever happen.

Well, there is a specific set of circumstances that could give sensible framework to the trade. Those circumstances have been authenticated separately by Rob Staton at Seahawks Draft Blog, working from a well-connected source he trusts, and a Seahawks.net forum member who also claims a contact within the Bengals organization. Adam Wright of Seahawks_Talk tweeted back in March that Palmer was being targeted by Seattle, and Sam Farmer of the LA Times has theorized the move as well, though the latter's comments could just be speculation.

There's also this Deep Throat with some intimate info that contradicts nothing we know about the situation. (Text, but NSFW).

Validating this rumor feels a little like validating the moon landing. There's a ton of quick, convenient contradictions that look good on the surface, but explore each of them with the facts and each sticking point goes away. The challenge is to overcome the "Oh, come on" reflex - the feeling that if you have to spend more than 5 minutes justifying something, you're just on the wrong path.

Here's the obvious counter-arguments:

The Mallett Ultimatum, Part 2: Too Many Holes?

Part 1 of the Ryan Mallett series can be found here.


In typical fashion, much of the sports community is only now taking a fair look at the Arkansas signal-caller and judging him in the light of actual NFL attributes. He's a polarizing figure, to be sure. All it takes in this reactionary pre-draft environment is one notable writer or reporter to laud a guy, and suddenly everyone starts jumping on board. ESPN ran a front-page piece on him this week. Phil Simms pumped up the guy. Jon Gruden hosted a whiteboard session in which Mallett blew Cam Newton and Andy Dalton out of the water in a demonstration of his grasp of pro-level offensive concepts. And now Greg Cosell, a knowledgeable scout and draftnik, is tweeting about him in the context of actual NFL offenses.

With the hype machine finally swinging in Mallett's favor for once, expect a resurgence of his draft stock. Some draft experts will keep Mallett in Round 2, but I'm fairly sure they'll be proven wrong on draft day when some desperate team reaches for him.

And it's not insane to say that said team should be the Seattle Seahawks, even despite rumors that they're not interested. (Rob Rang claims they still are.)

Which is why, when our little draft team traded up from #25 to #15 to select Mallett in the Mock Three Twitter draft, we raised a few eyebrows. Several people asked why, Adam Wright of Seahawks Talk thought it too costly, and a couple guys said we could have waited until the #57 pick to grab him, if not the third round.

Most of the rest of you just say - rightfully - that the team has too many holes to fill and can't afford giving up a second-round pick to trade up.

Here's part two of my defense.

UPDATED: Seahawks Draft Rumors, April 20-21

If you're reading me, you're probably already following Seahawks Draft Blog's Rob Staton on Twitter and have seen what I'm about to pass on. He's been dropped a few nuggets, supposedly from the inside organization, on how Seattle is looking at the upcoming draft. Rob and I both know this source to be reliable, having conveyed accurate info on the Seahawks' actions in last year's draft.

Here's what we've been told:

(UPDATED for new info on Thursday night)

UPDATED: Mock Drafts Placing Ryan Mallett with Seattle

Mock drafts change about as often as the weather, but this week a handful of high-profile mocks seem to have converged on one prospect for the Seahawks at #25: Arkansas QB Ryan Mallett.

Rob Staton at Seahawks Draft Blog was the first I noticed. Most of you probably follow him (and should be) and have seen his protests of the raging criticism and groupthink that have dogged Mallett for months. Yet in all that time he hasn't actually pegged Mallett as a good candidate for the Seahawks, which should tell you something about his objectivity. The fact that Staton looks for positives on the guy says less about his opinion of Mallett and more about his desire to balance out the hype machine.

Well, this week Staton took the plunge, mocking Mallett to Seattle at #25. It got interesting when he was joined by Rob Rang of CBS Sports, Don Banks of SportsIllustrated.com, NFL.com writer Steve Wyche, and even NFP's Wes Bunting, who helped contribute to the negative publicity on the Arkansas QB. All are currently projecting Ryan Mallett at #25.

The convergence is probably coincidence. Nobody quoted any sources or illuminating new scraps of information on why Mallett might be destined for Qwest Field. Sometimes hunches just come together...although it's not uncommon for such "collective hunches" to be noticed, expanded upon, and turned into a hype wave of its own. That's how Mallett's stock started to drop in the first place.

Here's what they said:

NFL Network: Seattle in first-round QB hunt

NFL Network's Albert Breer comments on Seattle's quarterback intentions: (emphasis mine)

   With Charlie Whitehurst difficult to count on as a "quarterback of the future," and Matt Hasselbeck's contract up, Seattle has planned for months to seriously consider pulling the trigger on a new signal-caller in the first round. ... There are likely three quarterbacks going in the top half of the first round: Missouri's Blaine Gabbert, Auburn's Cam Newton and Washington's Jake Locker. Now, to get any of those three would require a serious move up and a heavy cost to Seattle, and that means there would have to be serious conviction on the part of the staff. Maybe Carroll has that with the hometown kid Locker...But otherwise, all this might mean the team would be left with the option of Ryan Mallett at the bottom of the first round, and the Seahawks already are well aware of the kind of risk he presents from a character perspective.

   One way for the Seahawks to address their quarterbacking question could be to make another run at Kevin Kolb. ... Remember, the Browns and Seahawks made inquiries last offseason about Kolb but were rebuffed as it became clear the Eagles preference was to deal Donovan McNabb. Cleveland, of course, has insight because of GM Tom Heckert's Philadelphia roots, while Seattle was another West Coast offense team that figured Kolb's transition could be a smooth one.

My take: This strikes me as nothing more than makes-sense speculation. A few disagreements I have:

• Kevin Kolb is indeed a hot commodity - in the sense that a hot stove top can scorch your hand. He's an untested QB and his very limited action in 2010 hasn't changed that. Something else that hasn't changed is his price tag of two first-rounders - a price Seattle walked away from last year when they actually had those picks available. Why would they go back to the well now?

• I have a creeping hunch that a surprising run on quarterbacks will occur early in the first round. As in all four top prospects (Gabbert, Newton, Locker, Mallett) gone in the top half of the draft, perhaps sooner. The draft is top-heavy with QB-hungry teams and has seen a number of free-agent QB experiments sputter and die this year (e.g. Donovan McNabb, Jake Delhomme, Jason Campbell, Brett Favre, Troy Smith, Kyle Orton, Derek Anderson, Trent Edwards), possibly making the free agent route a little unseemly. Struggling teams need new franchise faces to rejuvenate the fans. Rookie QB's are always a hot commodity. Plenty of GM's and coaches think they have what it takes to turn first-round projects into stars. Combine these factors, and you have the makings of an early run.

• If Mallett falls to #25, is that really such a hard choice for Seattle? Footwork schmootwork...the only real reason Mallett's stock is falling is those un-confirmable character flags. The guy knows quite well what he has to show in the next few months to maximize his stock. Give the kid a chance. His on-the-field abilities are starting to make him look like the most NFL ready signal-caller in this draft, other than the out-of-reach Gabbert.