BY CHRIS HAFT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Bengals running back Ki-Jana Carter politely but pointedly took issue with team management and fans Sunday while calling his fractured left wrist worse than his 1995 knee injury.
"I know I could come back and play this year. That's what makes it worse," said Carter, who has remained out of the public eye -- except for a Sept. 28 appearance on ESPN's Up Close -- since being hurt in the Sept. 6 season opener against Tennessee.
Speaking before Sunday's game, Carter said he had hoped to avoid being placed on injured reserve, which finished him for the year. Carter, who said he should get the four pins removed from the apparatus encasing his wrist on Friday, estimated he might have been able to return by mid-November, which would have left him eligible for the playoffs if the Bengals qualified.
"I at least wanted to have a chance to play," he said. "But they did it for the benefit of the team (to make use of his roster spot)." Regarding the playoffs, Carter said, "I still feel we could go."
Carter heard the booing as he was driven off the field, having shattered his wrist after catching a 3-yard pass late in the fourth quarter and falling backward.
"Of course they're going to boo. We had to take a timeout," Carter said. "But I'm not going to lay on the field if I'm not hurt. It wasn't called for. If you see a guy on the field in pain like that, especially at home, why do you have to do something like that?"
Asked if a season in limbo might prompt the Bengals to leave him unprotected for the Cleveland Browns in next year's expansion draft, Carter said, "I don't really worry about that."
Unable to exercise at all, which would risk infecting his wrist, Carter said his forced inactivity has discouraged him from visiting the team's Spinney Field headquarters, though he'll probably show up more after the pins are removed.
"I don't want to come around Spinney. I can't do anything," said Carter, noting he weighs around 215 pounds, down from his playing weight of 222.
Continuing to follow the Bengals closely -- "I care about the guys on this team," he said -- Carter offered the same observations about their performance that most fans do.
"It seems like when the offense is doing well, the defense isn't and when the defense is doing well, the offense isn't. We need to put a game together on both sides of the ball," he said.
Overall, Carter was upbeat, as he waswhen he missed his rookie season with torn left knee ligaments and endured a torn left rotator cuff last year.
"Maybe I'm getting all the injuries done the first four years," he said. "Of course you're going to think that (he's jinxed) sometimes, but who knows? Maybe it happened for a reason."
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