Jon Kitna has taken every snap for the Bengals this season. Andy Lyons/Getty Images

By Peter King

Football is about as inexact a science as man has ever created. Best-laid plans are wasted by broken tibias, and perfect blueprints can be scuttled by a bum MRI.

We bring you the 2003 version of How to Screw Up a Great Plan. Only this time, it has sort of a happy ending.

Last April, the Bengals tied their future to the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback from USC, Carson Palmer. Smart move. Cincinnati hadn't had a quarterback of the future who actually produced quarterback-of-the-future numbers since drafting Boomer Esiason 19 years ago, and Palmer seemed like as good a risk as any. Bright kid, big kid, great arm.

No one counted on Jon Kitna, thought to be just the latest Scott-Mitchellian schmoe in a long line of Bengal schmoes, to go 6-1 in his last seven games, to be on a 16-touchdown-pass, three-interception streak.

I can't believe I am writing the following sentence, but it is true: Jon Kitna has played himself into Most Valuable Player contention with his performance since the Bengals emerged from their bye week on fire in October. When this happens, you have to be able to adjust. You have to be able to say that the quarterback who is playing great is your quarterback of the future. That's what Jon Kitna is right now. He is the guy to lead the Bengals into the long-term future, even with the big money they've committed to Palmer.

How can you plan to keep Palmer benched? Easy. The Bengals are winning games. You don't mess with success. It could well be that in October 2004, Kitna loses it and plays like a bottomed-out Akili Smith. When that happens, you give Palmer his chance. But not until.

Too often in the NFL, teams think that because they've spent a jillion dollars on a player that they have to play him. No. Ryan Leaf, and a score of players like him, show you the fallacy of that practice. You play a young player when he's ready, and you play a young player when the guy in front of him isn't playing well.

It would be like the old Bengals, the incompetent Bengals, to play Carson Palmer because they paid him a lot of money. The new Bengals, quite simply, will play the best guy. That guy is Jon Kitna, and I think it'll be the reborn Jon Kitna for a long time.

Carson Palmer threw four TD passes in the preseason. Chris Trotman/Getty Images

By Don Banks

I love a feel-good story as much as the next hack, and Jon Kitna's rise to legitimate MVP candidate is as good as it gets in the warm and fuzzy department this NFL season.

But feelings sometimes need to take a backseat to reason, and that's why the Bengals can't allow Kitna's success this year to change their opinion about Carson Palmer. The Bengals drafted Palmer first overall in 2003 because his blend of talent, smarts and potential for leadership gives him a chance to be a great NFL player for a long time.

That hasn't changed, even if Kitna is playing the best ball of his seven-year pro career and the Bengals are -- praise be -- finally winning. Cincinnati's organizational philosophy under Marvin Lewis is this: With the league's talent level being as equal as it is these days, what everyone is searching for is the special quarterback, that rare difference-maker who'll get a team to the playoffs and keep it there.

Is that more likely to be Kitna, who turned 31 in September, or Palmer, who is days shy of 24? Upside is always a tricky animal, but the odds say Palmer's ceiling is higher than Kitna's, and you have to commit to developing that potential at some point.

No less an interested observer than Kitna himself is on record saying Palmer already can do things that normal quarterbacks can't, and that his skills are in a different class compared to most. Who are we to argue?

I don't say you play Palmer because of the money you're paying him or his draft slot. I say you play him because of the ability you saw on display at Southern Cal (and again this preseason), which is what led you to draft him No. 1 and pay him all that money to begin with.

Granted, while Palmer should remain the quarterback of the future, it's tough to divine exactly when that future should begin. Chances are, the timing will take care of itself at some point next season. But if it doesn't, you could do worse than the Chad Pennington example. The Jets' quarterback and 2000 first-round pick didn't start until five games into his third season, and that worked out just fine.

Kitna owns today in Cincinnati, and more power to him. But Palmer holds the promise of even brighter tomorrows, and the Bengals can't afford to let their happy present obscure their future.