Cincinatti ? The cards and letters provided a needed laugh.

Not much had gone right for Carson Palmer since his first pass in the Cincinnati Bengals’ first playoff game in 15 years. Pittsburgh’s Kimo von Oelhoffen crashed into his left knee. Ligaments burst. The kneecap dislocated. Doctors reassembled the jigsaw puzzle. A lonely, painful rehab was just getting started.

And all the while, those Steelers – the ones that the Bengals had replaced as AFC North champs, the ones that had ended Palmer’s season so painfully – were making their way to the Super Bowl.

At that point, the mail was a godsend.

“It’s been funny to watch and see the cards you get, the get-well cards and the pictures people draw,” Palmer said. “I had pictures drawn of me while I’m laying on the field with my legs crooked.”

Eight months later, the leg is straight and the bad days are gone. Palmer is back at quarterback sooner than anyone could have reasonably expected, playing better than anyone could have reasonably hoped.

When he threw three touchdown passes in his preseason return against Green Bay, everyone marveled.

“For him to come out and do the things that he did shows how hard he worked during the offseason to get his knee back to where it is today,” running back Rudi Johnson said.

It wasn’t as easy as he made it look.

When Palmer began the painful process of rebuilding his knee following surgery Jan. 10, he was in uncharted territory. The 2002 Heisman Trophy winner at Southern Cal had never sustained such a serious injury.

Cincinnati quarterback Carson Palmer (9) grimaces after injuring his knee in the Bengals' playoff loss to the Steelers. Palmer will start Sunday at Kansas City.

Those first few days were rough.

“The beginning of the process of going into rehab on crutches, not being able to bend your leg past 10 degrees, having staples in your skin and having stitches holding your skin together, and not knowing how long of a journey and a comeback it was going to be,” Palmer said, thinking back to a time not so long ago, “and, the playoffs were still going on.

“That was the toughest part. It’s something that a lot of people have been through. I had a lot of support and help.”

Some of it came from the most unexpected places.

There were those letters and drawings that provided a momentary smile. And there were the phone calls, some from virtual strangers trying to lift his spirits.

One of the first came from Kansas City quarterback Trent Green, who will be trying to outdo Palmer on Sunday in the teams’ season opener. Although Green had only met Palmer a couple of times, he understood what he was going through.

Green suffered a similar injury to his left knee during the 1999 preseason, and needed four operations to get it right. During numerous phone calls, he gave Palmer advice on what to expect and how to deal with it.

“It’s a long, lonely road,” Green said. “And it’s a hard process for anybody, let alone someone that’s in the national spotlight. It just makes it that much harder. Everybody wants to talk about it. Everybody wants constantly to know what’s going on. So I just wanted to reach out to him.”

The Bengals tried to stifle the talk by putting a gag order on Palmer and providing as little information as possible. They initially acknowledged only that he had torn his anterior cruciate ligament; he had also shredded another ligament and damaged cartilage and tissue around the kneecap.

The team didn’t confirm his surgery until a day after he had it, only then acknowledging that two ligaments were involved. Palmer was forbidden to do interviews, which only fueled speculation about his condition.

The team didn’t confirm the extent of his injury until five months later, when Palmer was past the toughest part of his rehab and looking like he might be ready for the season opener.

He had several important things working in his favor. Players usually take more than a year to fully recover from such an injury. As a quarterback, he can get back on the field faster.

“If he were a wide receiver or running back or defensive back, you’d look at it a little bit different,” trainer Paul Sparling said. “He has an advantage in that.”

His body also healed well. He had some soreness and swelling in the knee, but nothing that amounted to a setback.

“Everybody’s different,” Palmer said. “You know, some people take four months, some people take 16 months. It just depends on your genes, your body makeup, the surgery that was done, how you rehab.”

It’s gone nearly perfect. Palmer is expecting to start the opener Sunday in Kansas City, exactly eight months to the day after his surgery. The original guess was that it would take eight to 12 months.

“I’m really surprised,” said Green, who took much longer for his comeback. “He hasn’t had any (setbacks), and he won’t have any because now he’s past that point. And he’s just done a great job with it. I’m impressed that he’s back this quick.”

The recovery has been so smooth that Palmer is finished thinking about it. For anyone else, his start on Sunday would represent a reason to celebrate.

Palmer sees it differently.

“To be honest, I really haven’t thought about it,” he said. “I’m not celebrating anything. I’m just getting ready to play a football game.”

He’s been preparing for eight months.