Carson Palmer was a pretty productive player during his time with the Cincinnati Bengals, and throughout his entire time in the NFL. He also made a whole lot of money over the course of his career: A total of $172.5 million.
Unfortunately for Palmer -- and the teams that employed him -- his production on the field never quite matched his contract. As a result, he was recently named as one of the most overpaid players in NFL history by Brad Gagnon of Bleacher Report.
Carson Palmer named one of the most overpaid players in NFL History
In the publication's list of the 12 most overcompensated players ever, Palmer came in at No. 8 overall, with injury issues and lack of playoff success being cited as the main rationale for his inclusion in the list.
"He was simply never the same after suffering a significant knee injury in January 2006, and he was part of just one postseason victory in his long career," Gagnon wrote of Palmer.
It's tough to argue with the logic here. Despite his regular season success -- Palmer was a three-time Pro-Bowler and he led the league in passing touchdowns in 2005 -- he appeared in just four total playoff games, and the only playoff win of his career didn't even come in a Bengals uniform. Instead, it came in 2015 when he was the quarterback of the Arizona Cardinals.
Knee and elbow injuries hampered Palmer early in his career, and possibly prevented him from reaching his full potential as a player, but he still managed to put together a 14-year career, which is pretty impressive.
Interestingly enough, every individual on Bleacher Report's list of overpaid players is a quarterback. Ahead of Palmer on the list are Kirk Cousins, Dak Prescott, Sam Bradford, Deshaun Watson, Jay Cutler, Daniel Jones and Jimmy Garoppolo. Behind Palmer on the list are Ryan Tannehill, Alex Smith, Carson Wentz and Joe Flacco.
So if anything, this list tells us that teams are willing to invest heavily in the quarterback position, but those investments don't always work out. Given the importance placed on QB play in today's NFL, that pattern is unlikely to change in the near future.
