Sunday night after the second straight playoff game meltdown for Carson Palmer, his head coach took to the podium in his defense.
“Carson did not lose the damn game,” Arians said, adding the damn in there as a way to seemingly toughen his stance on the issue at hand. “There’s nothing wrong with his damn finger. We didn’t play nearly well enough, especially our best players.”
But here’s the thing. The main “best player” effing everything up was definitely Palmer in the Arizona Cardinals’ 49-15 defeat at the hands of the Carolina Panthers. While you can point to an uncharacteristic drop from playoff legend Larry Fitzgerald on a tipped pass on third down or a holding call against Patrick Peterson in the first quarter as being a factor in the defeat, I think Palmer’s four interceptions and two sack-fumbles probably made a much bigger difference in the outcome of the game.
Bruce Arians wanted Carson Palmer to be aggressive. Well, he has been aggressive throwing into coverage.
— Elliot Harrison (@HarrisonNFL) January 25, 2016
One of those picks came in the end zone. Another was returned for a touchdown. I mean, I’m not a statistician but those seem to factor in more than a little bit.
Arians was being honest about one thing. It wasn’t Palmer’s “damn finger” that was the problem. It was Palmer’s “damn psyche” and “damn heart.” Carson Palmer is a loser who loses. He did everything he could to cost the Arizona Cardinals the game against the Green Bay Packers in the divisional round. Palmer threw two interceptions in that game, but the Packers dropped at least three including two on the Cards’ fourth-quarter scoring drive that would have ended the game outright.
Palmer’s touchdown pass in the fourth was a horrible pass into triple coverage that took a lucky bounce into Michael Floyd’s hands after a Packers defensive back got a hand on it five yards away. This is not a player stepping up on the biggest stage of his life. This is a player melting down for two solid weeks before our eyes. And if you factor in the Cardinals’ ass kicking at the hands of the Seattle Seahawks on the final day of the regular season when they were actually battling for home field advantage, it was three weeks.
"Carson did not lose the damn game. It had nothing to do with the finger"
-Bruce Arians pic.twitter.com/xdCquhfpUt— Bo Brack (@BoBrack) January 25, 2016
Carson Palmer played so bad it actually reflected poorly on another team in the NFL. Twitter was full of “Carson Palmer is still a Bengal” jokes that had to doubly burn Cincinnati fans because they just so happened to be true.
The fact that anyone picked the Cardinals to win this game after watching Palmer’s meltdown against the Packers is beyond me. That was no aberration of a game for Carson Palmer. That’s who he is. He proved it again Sunday.
Now I can’t blame Arians for sticking up for Palmer in this situation. It’s not like he could have gone to the bench, down 24-7 and hoped Drew Stanton could have found the magic against one of the best defenses in the league after a week of virtually no reps at quarterback with the first team. No, Arians had no choice. Palmer was either going to snap out of it or he wasn’t. Spoiler alert, he didn’t.
Arians knows that he’s tied to Palmer for another season and maybe beyond. He can’t draft a guy high because there’s no way any rookie will beat Palmer out in camp. The Cardinals have a decent back-up already in Stanton and a guy that could be the future of the franchise in Matt Barkley. But in training camp, with nothing on the line, Palmer will look as good as he always does as a man blessed with the God-given abilities his genetics provides without any of the in-game weaknesses his heart and mental deficiencies display.
Arians on Carson Palmer, "There is no doubt in my mind. He will come back with even more vengeance after this one."
— Arizona Sports (@AZSports) January 25, 2016
And unless Barkley comes into camp in the spring shooting the lights out, Arians is stuck with him at quarterback. The good news for Arians and Palmer, at least for this next season, is that the Los Angeles Rams stuck with Jeff Fisher and the San Francisco 49ers hired Chip Kelly. The road to the 2016-2017 playoffs is already set for Arizona. Arians just has to figure out what to do with Palmer when he gets there.
