Here is your lat­est Car­son Palmer update. Our intre­pid hero tells the Cincin­nati Post that the plan is for him to play in pre­sea­son games on August 28 against Green Bay and on Sep­tem­ber 1 at Cincinnati.

Accord­ing to the machine that is Cold Pizza, Palmer says he’s not at 100% and can­not sprint full-speed yet. Palmer and the team still believe that he will be ready for open­ing day in Kansas City.

It will be harder to find big­ger advo­cates of Car­son Palmer than Andy and myself. How­ever, pro­ceed with cau­tion in your drafts as it relates to Palmer. Don’t ignore the backup QB posi­tion if you snag him.

More on Palmer later this evening…

Com­ing into 2005, many prog­nos­ti­ca­tors had Jones as a mar­ginal top 10 back. He started the last 7 games of 2004, and had amassed 803 yards in that time. This was a can’t miss guy you could have got­ten towards the end of the 1st round or start of the 2nd. But we all know the story. Jones strug­gled might­ily, bat­tled injuries, and opened the door for his backup, Mar­ion Bar­ber, to steal carries.

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Since you can’t be NFL com­mis­sioner, go to camp…

Matt Leinart = hold­out.                                                                                                                                             

                                                                                                           

PK tracks down the details on the Bush con­tract. Besides being slapped around for Louisiana state tax, he made out just fine.  

Steve Smith update: He is day to day.

The Fal­cons and Michael Vick are minus one com­pe­tent receiver. 

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Con­trary to prior reports, Reg­gie Bush will not miss sig­nif­i­cant time this pre­sea­son. Accord­ing to ESPN.com’s front page,

The Saints’ first-round pick has agreed to a six-year con­tract, Len Pasquarelli reports. The deal is expected to be signed Sunday.

That strange sound you hear are all the Deuce McAl­lis­ter own­ers shuddering.

UPDATE - Full ESPN.com story here.

Many fan­tasy prognosticator’s num­ber 1 WR for the 2006 sea­son is off to a rather dis­ap­point­ing start to his train­ing camp:

Mid­way through the after­noon ses­sion, Smith pulled up while run­ning a long route down the left side­line. He imme­di­ately clutched his left ham­string, took a cou­ple of steps and fell to the ground.

And…

He threw his gloves in anger, got onto the back of the cart and was brought inside.

So yes…It is not a new prob­lem for Smith, but ham­string injuries can be the bane of a fan­tasy owner’s sea­son. We’ll keep our eye on the situation.

The biggest high-risk/high-reward pick at QB this sea­son is not Car­son Palmer. It’s not Daunte Culpep­per, Dono­van McN­abb, or Ben Roeth­lis­berger. It’s Marc Bulger.

Through the first five games of the 2005 sea­son, Bul­ger had 1,648 yards, 10 TD’s, and 7 INT’s. Extrap­o­late those num­bers for a full sea­son and you get 5,273 yards, 32 TD’s, and 22 INT’s. Even if your league takes away points for INT’s, Bul­ger is most likely a top 5 QB with those num­bers. If your league doesn’t penal­ize QB’s for INT’s, those num­bers would have led your fan­tasy league.

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And we thought train­ing camp this year was going to be boring.…

First, Willie Roaf retires (although, the Chiefs hope dif­fer­ently)…now Tiki Bar­ber says he’s think­ing about call­ing it a career. Maybe he lis­tened to our first pod­cast.

One of the Eagles’ new receivers is in trou­ble with the law. Hmmm…they wouldn’t have these prob­lems if this guy was still on the team.

In Seattle, Matt Has­sel­beck brought the neg­a­tiv­ity with him to camp.  

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Accord­ing to the Star Ledger, Cur­tis Martin’s recov­ery from knee surgery is not going great.

Mar­tin, whose thresh­old for pain is the stuff of leg­ends, has been slow to recover from an arthro­scopic pro­ce­dure per­formed on his right knee last Decem­ber and was placed on the active/physically unable-to-perform list yes­ter­day. He was lim­ited in vet­er­ans’ mini­camp in June.

And it gets worse.

This off-season, Mar­tin, enter­ing his 12th NFL sea­son, had his base salary cut from $6.2 mil­lion to $2.5 mil­lion and it isn’t out of the ques­tion that he could be released if his knee doesn’t come around.

It appears as if Tennessee’s Cedric Hous­ton is the fron­trun­ner to backup Martin/take over the start­ing role if Mar­tin isn’t around.

After much spec­u­la­tion, Kansas City Chiefs tackle Willie Roaf decided to call it a career today, end­ing his 13-year NFL tenure.

Roaf cited ham­string and knee con­cerns over his retire­ment. One would have to believe that spend­ing time with his chil­dren in Cal­i­for­nia was also another rea­son for his decision.

Roaf, who was the rock for Kansas City’s offen­sive line over the past few sea­sons, stated he would return for another sea­son but was a non-factor in Chiefs’ off­sea­son workouts.

The biggest ques­tion from a fan­tasy per­spec­tive is should Larry John­son still be con­sid­ered the top run­ning back in fan­tasy football?

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With Willie Roaf retir­ing, Larry John­son becomes yet another start­ing run­ning back with a lot of ques­tions swirling over­heard as train­ing camps begin. Due to injuries, weak rookie col­lege run­ning back classes, and bad offen­sive sit­u­a­tions, 2006 is shap­ing up as a poten­tial night­mare at the RB spot. Here’s a look at what can go wrong for some of the con­sen­sus top 10 RB’s this season.

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