If Carson Palmer really doesn't like being in the spotlight, how does the former Bengals quarterback feel about the NFL Network's one-hour A Football Life about his career 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 14?
"He doesn't want the limelight, he doesn't want the spotlight – he doesn't ever want it to be about him," says Jon Kitna, former Bengals teammate, on the show.
Kitna is one of seven past or present Bengals interviewed about Palmer, the Bengals' No. 1 draft pick in 2003 from the University of Southern California. The Palmer show kicks off the eighth season of A Football Life, which will include a Cris Collinsworth profile on Friday, Nov. 23.
Head coach Marvin Lewis, former quarterbacks coach Hue Jackson, and former teammates Frostee Rucker, Chad Johnson, Terrell Owens and Jordan Palmer (his brother) appear in the show, along with former Arizona Cardinals teammates Larry Fitzgerald and Patrick Peterson; Cardinals coach Bruce Arians, owner Michael Bidwill and general manager Steve Keim; and former USC coaches Pete Carroll and Norman Chow.
"A young person who wants to go out and learn how to throw a football, you watch all of his (Palmer's) film because it's effortless," Arians says.
Palmer played seven seasons in Cincinnati (2004-10) before holding out and demanding a trade. The Bengals traded him to Oakland, where he played two years (2011-12) before being traded to the Cardinals. He played five seasons in Phoenix (2013-17). He retired after playing only seven games last year and moved to Sun Valley, Idaho.
The Heisman Trophy winner was 0-2 in playoff games for the Bengals (2008, 2009) and 1-1 for the Cardinals (2015).
"Not everybody gets to win the Super Bowl," Palmer says on the show. "The adversity I went through, I wouldn't change because it's made me who I am."
About 40 percent of the show will be about Palmer's Bengals' career, NFL Network publicists tell me. In the promotional video released last month, Palmer talks about his knee injury in the January 2006 AFC playoff game against the Steelers at Paul Brown stadium" "I just felt a pop, and knew my season was over."
Collinsworth, the Bengals receiver turned Emmy winning TV analyst, in the preview says, "I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm going to tell you what I think."
As I reported last month, the Collinsworth A Football Life will include video of him racing a bay horse at Latonia Race Course in 1983, and of his Wimbledon features for HBO, his first TV job.
The 11-episode season also includes Lawrence Taylor (Sept. 21), Tony Romo (Sept. 28), Willie McGinest (Oct. 5) and Brian Dawkins. Each show premieres at 8 p.m. Friday.
The NFL Network says that each episode of A Football Life – as well as all NFL Network programming – can be streamed live through the NFL app and via Watch NFL Network on smartphones, tablets, PCs and connected TV devices (Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV, PlayStation 4 and Roku). Access is available for NFL Network subscribers of participating TV providers. For more information, go to NFL.com/watch.
