There has been a lot of talk about the irony of Carson Palmer being #9 and Chad Johnson being #85 with Joe Burrow taking #9 and Tee Higgins #85. While Palmer and Ocho did not spend their entire career together I wanted to take a look at how these pairings can compare. Which combo will be better and what will it take?
Palmer and Johnson played from 2004-2010 together. Since 2003 was a red shirt year for Palmer, Johnson was catching passes from the great Jon Kitna. Palmer was also injured in 2004 for three games and again in 2008 for a whopping 12 games. So what did this dynamic duo put up?
Chad Johnson caught 507 balls for 44 touchdowns. He amassed 7,401 yards receiving just from Palmer during the regular season. A couple of things struck my eye as I was eyeing Chad’s stats. I did not realize that he never made 100 receptions in a season. His closest was in 2005 with 97 and I recall the talk was if he was going to pile on three more catches to hit 100. Chad was also very healthy in his career and only missed 8 games in 11 seasons.
So can Burrow and Higgins catch these two? I think a lot of it will depend on how long AJ Green is on this team as well as if Tyler Boyd emerges to be the #1. If this is Green’s last season with the Bengals then Higgins will see a lot more targets early. Clearly both Burrow and Higgins need to pan out and be great players to see the Palmer/Johnson numbers but it is certainly possible to see a need dynamic duo of 9 to 85!