Dozen years after being drafted No. 1, Carson Palmer delivering on promise
TEMPE, Ariz. — There’s a different mindset in the NFL playoffs.
The records, streaks and reputations you’ve worked so hard for are now irrelevant. Every game could be a team’s last, and fate can turn on one play. It can be a difficult concept to grasp for young players or those with little playoff experience.
Not for Carson Palmer.
If the Arizona Cardinals quarterback has learned one thing in his star-crossed career, it’s that tomorrow promises nothing.
“Not being able to play, it makes you appreciate film study that matters, practices that matter, the game,” Palmer said Tuesday. “There is no doubt that (this season) has been an absolute blast, and I want to keep playing.”
As the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and first overall pick in the 2003 NFL Draft, Palmer was supposed to be a can’t-miss kid. But a devastating knee injury suffered in the 2005 wild-card game — on his first pass in the playoffs, no less — sparked a tumultuous eight years that had many asking, “Whatever happened to that promising young quarterback?”
There was a bitter divorce with the Bengals, and an exile to the Black Hole of Oakland. There were more injuries.
And then, after Palmer had finally found the right fit in Arizona and was reminding everyone why the hopes for him had been so high, the cruelest blow of all.
“Oh, man,” right guard Jonathan Cooper said, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. “That was rough.”
On Nov. 9, 2014, two days after the Cardinals gave Palmer a three-year, $50 million contract extension befitting a franchise quarterback, he blew out his knee.
Again.
Palmer promised he’d be back in time for this season. But he was also a month shy of his 35th birthday, and everyone knows that Father Time moves at warp speed in the NFL.
If doubts crept into his mind, however, they were quickly chased away.
“Not fears. Anticipation and expectation, but no fear whatsoever,” Palmer said. “You can fear a lot of stuff, but at the end of the day, you have to put the work in, and go out and execute when it is time to execute to get back there.”
That’s one of those things that sounds easier said than done. But Palmer has never had much need for the rear-view mirror, whether it’s on the field or off. What’s done is done, and asking “What if?” is just a waste of time.
Just get on with it.
“He goes to the next play better than anybody I’ve ever seen,” Cardinals coach Bruce Arians said. “He just erases it and goes on to the next one.
“It goes all the way back to my first year,” Arians added. “He threw a pick-six in the fourth quarter against Detroit, walked over on the sideline and said, ‘Let’s win the game. What do we got to do to win the game?’ Boom, then he goes out and gets 10 points and we win the game.”
Look at what Palmer has done this season, and it’s stunning to think of not only where he was at this time last year, but where he was in 2005. Or 2010. Or 2011. Or 2012. Almost any year, really.
He’s having perhaps the best year of anyone not named Cam Newton, leading Arizona to a franchise-win 13 wins and the No. 1 offense in the NFL. He’s thrown 35 touchdowns to 11 interceptions, and his QB rating of 104.6 trails only Russell Wilson (110.1) and Andy Dalton (106.3).
“He’s playing at an MVP level,” Arians said. “We’re not where we are without him, that’s for sure.”
And after waiting so long to get here, Palmer hopes it won’t be a short stay.
“As cheesy as it sounds, each game has been better. Each practice it gets better, and it gets more fun,” he said. “Every opportunity you get to go out on the field, you get more excited.”
They’re limited, those opportunities, and you have to make the most of them when they come around. Not that anyone needs to tell Palmer that. He knows exactly how precious this time is.
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