It's not that Palmer hasn't been a good player since his recovery: he quickly recovered and played in all 16 games in the next season (no difficult task, just inquire with Robert Griffin III) and even made it to the Pro Bowl. However, the Palmer in 2005 -- the one who dominated in the Madden 23 coins with 32 touchdown passes and an 67.8 completion rate while throwing 12 interceptions during his second season as an active player -- has never returned. His accuracy dropped and the Bengals organization's dysfunction resurfaced and he was plagued by elbow issues, which is likely the consequence of throwing on his knee that was surgically repaired.

His time in Cincinnati was over when the Bengals were 4-12 in the 2010 season. Palmer was eighth season with the team. Palmer said he'd prefer to retire at 31 rather than playing for the Bengals in the future: "I have $80 million in my bank account. I don't need to play football to earn money. I'll be playing to enjoy football, but that love will require a different place. I'm ready to live my life to the fullest." Consider that for a second: Palmer, the first overall selection in the 2003 Madden NFL 23 Draft, older that both Tom Brady and Peyton Manning and was determined to never play again in football at 31. This is how much playing for the Bengals is a pain in the arse.

Bengals owners Mike Brown, who created his ever-present failure machine through nepotism and thrift, has refused to take draft picks for free from a league that is quarterback-deficient. "Carson signed an agreement. He made a promise. He backed up his word," Brown said. "We believed in his commitment to his word. We relied on his word. We had hoped that he would perform in this regard. He's going to withdraw from the commitment he made. We won't reward the man for his actions."

Brown finally broke through halfway into the 2011 season, bringing Palmer to Oakland to receive a first-round selection and a second-rounder with a conditional selection, one of the reasons why the Raiders have remained an unprofitable team as the Bengals in the past couple of years.

There's a reason why the Oakland fans who are fervently loyal to the team are cheering out of their seats in the Black Hole: because the collapsed star physics apply for the Raiders. When quarterbacks cross the boundary of the event horizon that is cheap madden 23 coins an Oakland Raider their photons are reduced to zero, which means that we don't notice them disappearing. We simply look away.