Carson Palmer Raiders Trade: Is Oakland Now Dead in the Water?

In a surprising turn of events, the Oakland Raiders will be adding Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer to their roster today.

FOX Sports' Jay Glazer states that Raiders coach Hue Jackson, who has a good relationship with Bengals owner Mike Brown, was able to talk him into moving the quarterback, despite Brown spending the majority of 2011 stating that Palmer was in no way on the market this season.

In return, the Bengals would receive the Raiders' 2012 first-round pick and a conditional 2013 first rounder.

With this deal, the Raiders now have just fifth- and sixth-round picks in the 2012 NFL Draft, plus compensatory picks for Nnamdi Asomugha, Robert Gallery and Zach Miller, while the Bengals lose nothing but a disgruntled player who wanted out while gaining a pile of treasure in the form of two first-round picks.

Thus, at first glance, it looks like the Bengals are the big winners in this move, but it's not as clear as that.

The Raiders need a quarterback, now that Jason Campbell is out for an extended period of time with a broken collarbone, and there's no chance that backup Kyle Boller, with his sub-60 career completion percentage and more interceptions than touchdowns, would have been able to carry the Raiders into the postseason.

With the considerable momentum Oakland has built through six weeks, it would be a major disappointment if their season was lost with their quarterback. The Raiders needed a veteran—a talented veteran—to step in and lead the team. With David Garrard no longer available on the free-agent market, Palmer is easily the team's best option.

The trade represents one of the biggest coups in the NFL this season. Prior to today's developments, the thought of Brown seriously considering moving Palmer seemed an impossibility, with any discussion of the quarterback headed to Oakland the most fanciful of hypotheses.

But Jackson and Mark Davis, son of the late Al Davis, seemed to achieve the impossible by grabbing Palmer; the only problem is the huge cost to the future of the organization.

Obviously, the draft is how you build a team, with free agency a useful, if not costly, way to supplement it. While the Raiders are a young team with a lot of useful components, just having the option to improve in the draft puts them in a much better position in 2012—regardless of how this season plays out for the team.

Meanwhile, the Bengals are in far better shape than anyone had anticipated, with rookie quarterback Andy Dalton capably holding down the fort. Now, those two additional first-round draft picks are going to be invaluable to a team that has generally struggled to make the right personnel decisions in the past.

This is more of the same high-risk-high-reward maneuvering we've come to expect from the Raiders; the fact that it's the Bengals and Brown making the smart decisions is the only surprise about this trade.

No, losing all of those draft picks does not mean the Raiders are dead in the water in 2012 and beyond, but it makes things considerably more difficult. And, while Jackson and Davis should be praised for successfully tapping a well thought to be dry, it's clear that their desperation was too strong a bait for Brown to ignore.

It's simple supply-and-demand: There are few solid veteran quarterbacks available to any team, let alone to one as desperate as the Raiders. If Palmer appeared to be so valuable to the team, then Brown could easily milk them for every single asset they could feasibly acquire.

But, what's more important to a team: a Super Bowl victory or a bushel of draft picks? It's clear that, by making this move, the former is the higher priority to the Raiders this season.

Only time will tell which team emerges from this trade the winner. While the Bengals seem to have gotten the far better end of this transaction, the Raiders got exactly the player they needed and wanted.

Screwed? Not so much. Sometimes you just have cut off a leg to save the brain, as it were. The Raiders will figure out a way to run.