Carson Palmer on his health, fatherhood and the Cardinals' chances

TEMPE, Ariz. – Carson Palmer's future with the Arizona Cardinals is up in the air. The veteran quarterback's contract will void five days after the Super Bowl, and talks about a new one haven't yielded a new deal yet. But for now, Palmer has other priorities.

In a conversation with Paste BN Sports on Friday, Palmer discussed the healing of his throwing shoulder, how fatherhood has changed him, his skills at age 34, why Bruce Arians' offense can't be defined and this Cardinals team's chances for giving him his first playoff win.

Q: You missed three games with the nerve issue, now back for two. How's the shoulder?

A: The shoulder's been great. Starting to get power back and strength. Not so much arm strength, but endurance, getting to the end of practice and not just feeling like it's going to fall off. It's a lot better than it was a week and a half or two weeks ago.

Q: Have you ever had problems with that shoulder before?

A: No. (knocks on table)

Q: How scary is that when you just don't know what the problem is?

A: I knew what it was. I didn't know (the timetable). There is no 'it's a two-week injury, it's a two-day injury, it's a two-month (injury).' Everybody kept saying, 'You know, it'll get better eventually …' It's not career-ending. It's not completely damaged. So, that was good. There's just nothing you can do. It's when it comes back on, it comes back on. Prayer, acupuncture, massage, hot stone – I tried everything. It's just one of those things, when it decides to come back on, it comes back on. Thankfully, it did.

Q: Is there a miracle worker in Denver?

A: There's a guy that specializes in nerve stuff. Greg Roskopf is his name, and he definitely was a big part of it. But just all the stuff I've been doing definitely helped. It's just one of those (situations where) you just don't know, which is very frustrating.

Q: How does that compare to the uncertainty with your knee back in 2006? Your doctor then said the injury could be career-ending.

A: That was totally different, because that was a doctor saying that to kind of like, when I do come back, 'Well, he had a good surgery.' I had a pretty routine (injury). I felt differently than the way he portrayed the situation. I had a torn ACL and MCL. You repair it, you rehab it and you come back. Sometimes, it takes eight, 12 months. That, at least I knew what was ahead of me. This – 'Well, you might be able to play this week. Well, you might be able to play next week.' Then I go and see one doctor (Dr. Robert Watkins) who was actually a spine and neck specialist and he was like, 'Oh, you're six weeks away.' I was like, 'Oh, perfect, it's already been five weeks.' He goes, 'No, you're six weeks from now.' Fortunately, he was overshooting me a little bit. But I just remember being like, 'You've got to be kidding me.'

Q: It's a small sample size, but in two games since you've been back, your numbers suggest you haven't lost much.

A: It's taking me a little while, just because I had a lot of fatigue and muscle atrophy where I couldn't do that (move his forearm up and down at the elbow) for a month. So, just getting back into throwing tennis balls and going through the motion of actually throwing the football. It took some time and I'm still not a hundred percent back. It still gets tired at the end of practice, gets tired at the end of games, and that's just something you don't get back by doing anything but throwing.

Q: So you're in Year 12 now. You're 34 years old. You've been on a few good teams and a few really bad teams. There's still over half the season to go, but what does it mean to you to be a part of a team that has a chance?

A: It's awesome. It's all you can ask for – to be on a good team, to be on a team that everybody in the whole building just wants to win and that's the focus. There's no riff-raff. There's no young guys you worry about. This is a very focused group and that's all you can ask for at my age.

Q: Does it bug you that you've never won an NFL playoff game?

A: Oh, absolutely. I don't want to be done, watching football on Sundays, and saying I never got a chance to play in the Super Bowl. That lingers, heavily. Not that that's going to make me the man that I am or the father or the husband. That's not going to define me. But I want to experience that. I want to experience a run – a chance where you just get hot and you hit the playoffs and you make one of those runs, those magical (runs). However long it lasts, I want to be able to experience that.

Q: How old are your kids now?

A: I have twins that are 5½ and a 3½-year-old. I have boy-girl twins and then a little girl.

Q: They have to be getting to the age where they sort of get what you do for a living.

A: The Monday night game against San Diego was the first time they were really into it. We'll go home. They'll put on the football uniforms. We'll play catch. My son is always asking questions: 'Why's it four downs? What's a first down?' He thinks everything's a touchdown at first, but now, he's starting to understand, that was a big first-down completion. They're finally at that point where they get it. 'I've got to go sit in a hotel? Oh, you have a game tomorrow.' All those little things they're putting together, whereas before they would just go to the game and look for the big Cardinal. Now they're into it.

Q: That's got to be cool.

A: It's awesome.

Q: And if you go on that magical run, they'd remember it.

A: That's just as big a deal as the thing we were talking about before. I want them to have that memory.

Q: Do you ever think what would've happened if Bengals owner Mike Brown never traded you?

A: No. No, because he did, so …

Q: But you were content to "retire," at least for the time being.

A: I never thought that I would never play again. I didn't know whether it was going back there, getting traded, getting cut, who knows? But I figured I'd play again.

Q: And however things went in Oakland those two years, it got you here.

A: I think everything happens for a reason. I learned a lot. I saw a lot. Because if you don't learn from each situation you're going through, what's the point? It was a difficult, no doubt, a difficult time. But the things I saw and the things I've learned I think have benefited me since I've been here and will benefit me in the future.

Q: What's the biggest difference between you now and, say, 10 years ago?

A: Everything. Kids, as you know – that's an instant life-changer. I've seen a lot, aside from being a father, being in a different place, different offense, all those (football) things. Those things are irrelevant. But I think once you have kids and you start a family, life is never the same and it never will be the same. Once you bring somebody else into this world and you have that responsibility and that – whatever it is, whether it's a joy or a burden, life is never the same. Life has completely changed upside down from 10 years ago.

Q: What about as a quarterback?

A: I was never a drop-back, take-off-and-run guy. I've probably gotten a little bit slower, but it hasn't changed my game whatsoever. I don't feel like my delivery's gotten any slower. I might have been able to throw it 76 yards. Now I throw it 73. Maybe I've lost a little bit on that. But what I've gained, just playing in the hundreds of games I've played just from start until now – third down, red zone, 4-minute offense, milking the clock situations, no huddle, 2-(minute drill) – all those experiences. I think back to all the times. There's situations I've been in where I'll be mad because I missed a read and I'll be like, 'That was just like that Buffalo game, in Buffalo, in 2007' or 'Man, I didn't do this. I did this against the Giants.' I vividly remember. I remember a lot more of the bad than the good, because the bad kind of sticks with you for longer. I recall all kinds of situations from actual games. But I think the leader that I've become and dealing with teammates going through personal issues or teammates going through injuries – the different things I've dealt with on different teams and the characters I've learned to be a psychologist for and when to be a hard-ass on, all the situations have benefited me greatly.

Q: I looked back at the video of your knee injury and on the receiving end of that is Chris Henry, who passed away almost five years ago. You cross paths with a lot of people and the quarterback is more involved with melding those parts together than a lot of probably realize.

A: The young guys, especially now – these guys are born in the '90s. You're not a father figure, but a role model. There's a couple guys I kind of mentor now. The psychologist you play and some guys that have multiple personalities – you have so many different guys and have to find ways to motivate them in practice or make sure they understand what they're supposed to do on Cover-Zero this week or all the different things, all the different facets of the game. You learn a lot through all those experiences.

Q: You have a lot of weapons on this Cardinals team. Where does this group stack up if you were looking back through your career?

A: At one time, I was fortunate to have Chris Henry, T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Chad (Johnson) in his prime. Really, really good. It's so hard to compare. But this is by far the most mature group of guys I've been around. Mike Floyd is in Year 3, but he's as mature a Year 3 guy as I've been around. John (Carlson) is extremely professional, Larry (Fitzgerald) the same. John Brown has come in and learned an offense that rookies shouldn't be able to learn right away and have the impact he's had. It's as mature and potentially explosive as any group.

Q: Bruce Arians throws a lot of scheme at defenses.

A: It's tough to say exactly what we are or who we are. We'll spread you out and throw it quick. We'll block 'em up, run power, run iso plays. We'll spread you out and run it. We'll spread you out and run screens. We'll spread you out and take shots. He kind of has been around a lot and seen a lot and taken little things from different places and put it in, and if it works, it works. If it's not (working), he'll cut a play out on Thursday. We'll watch it on Thursday and be like, 'Eh.' He'll just skip through it and say this play's not in. He'll kind of grab things and see something on film against a team, put it in. There's no real West Coast, run-and-shoot – there is no description.

Q: So can all this come together for the magical run you're talking about?

A: Oh, no doubt. No doubt. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but there's no doubt we're capable of it.

Q: What will it take?

A: It takes staying healthy. It takes getting healthy. It takes out-executing. It takes controlling the ball and keeping the defense off the field. It takes everything we've got. There's no doubt, the NFC is tough, especially when you look at the other side. Our division is tough. It's going to take everything we've got. But we've got enough to make it happen.

Q: And you've got to keep that shoulder right, too.

A: There's a lot of stuff you've got to do. But I feel like I'm finally kind of getting to the point where that's not so much of my day.

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