Carson Palmer is even better following a second knee surgery

Why Carson Palmer is even better following a second knee surgery

Pete Prisco

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/writer/pete-prisco/25263882/why-carson-palmer-is-even-better-following-a-second-knee-injury

GLENDALE, Ariz. — The pass came with so much sizzle you half expected a vapor trail behind it. The pass came during an Arizona Cardinals practice last week, the ball fitting into a tight window that few quarterbacks can squeeze a football through.

Larry Fitzgerald gathered in the hot potato of pass from Carson Palmer, and if there were any doubts about whether Palmer was back from a torn ACL they were long gone by the time the offense lined up for the next play.

“I was like holy s—,” Cardinals coach Bruce Arians said. “He fit it through a pigeon hole.”

After undergoing a second major knee surgery last year, an injury that cut short his season and essentially ended any Super Bowl chances for the Cardinals, Palmer, at the age of 35, might be better than he’s ever been.

It’s as if he’s been put back together and the new version is even better.

The ball pops off his arm with more velocity, the end result of hours and hours in the gym, a refinement of his mechanics and the will to want to be whole again.

It would have been easy for Palmer at his age to just say enough is enough. He went through the painstaking, laborious process of ACL rehab 10 years ago when he was young and wide-eyed and early in his career. So when he tore his knee up last November, two days after a contract extension with the Cardinals, he was forced to do it a second time, which is not an easy thing for an aging player.

To go through it again with him turning 36 this December, why not just forget it? This is a man who has made enough money in his career that he was willing to sit out in 2011 when he asked the Cincinnati Bengals to trade him. At the time, he said he had $60 million in the bank and was ready to walk away if need be.

He was eventually traded to Oakland in October of that year, played the rest of that season, and then was traded to the Cardinals in 2013. The sitting out led to whispers that he wasn’t a guy who loved the game.

To see him now, that seems so far woefully misguided. The rehab has shown a lot of people just how hungry Palmer is to play — and win.

“I think my passion has grown stronger over the years,” Palmer said. “I get these young guys, and kids on the team born in the ’90s saying, “why are you still playing?’ I am playing because I love the game. I love throwing the ball. I love the mental challenge. I enjoy everything about it, other than the way you feel on Monday and Tuesday morning. When you first come into the league, you’re like, ‘I am going to play for six, seven eight, nine, 10 years.’ Now going into year 13, I realize you don’t play into your 40s and you don’t play forever. My passion and love for the game is stronger and my urgency to make that playoff run and get to the Super Bowl is stronger than ever.”

That’s why he was maniacal in his rehab.

“All he’s done is work out and rehab,” Arians said. “The guy was a maniac. He’s stronger. His core is stronger. It’s impressive.”

Palmer was also coming back from a shoulder injury suffered early in the season last year. So it was an upper-body rehab, as well as major knee rehabilitation. That’s tough. Going through it once helped Palmer navigate the sometimes-torturous rehab.

“The knee happened, I went through surgery and three days after surgery I started my rehab,” Palmer said. “That’s when I got all the sulking and feeling bad for myself out of the way to really attack and focus on my rehab. Going through the rehab for the second time, you know what to expect on a daily basis. Going into the preseason games, I know how I am going to be sore, why I am going to be sore, how to correct that soreness.”

Palmer, who has a gym in his house, was so diligent in his work to get back that he had to be told to take a week off, forced to do so in early June. And it killed him. He took his family to Lake Tahoe to relax, but ….

“I was itching after day four,” Palmer said. “I was ready to go back. But I was forced to take seven days. We took seven days off, and then I was right back at it.”

In camp, Palmer is resting every fourth or fifth day, even if he balked when told that was the plan. He does wear a brace on his left knee and had a scare earlier this week when safety Tyrann Mathieu ran into him, but he’s confident that there won’t be any issues with him standing in to make all throws.

In camp, where there is no threat to be hit, he has been sensational. He was so sharp last Monday that some in the organization said it was as good as any practice he’s had in his three seasons with the Cardinals. Palmer worked hard on his mechanics during his rehab, which has helped his ball come out faster, and that has showed up.

“You better get your head around fast,” Cardinals receiver Michael Floyd said last week before dislocating three fingers and being forced out for up to five weeks. “His arm is better now.”

“I feel like it has gotten stronger,” Palmer said.

One of the mechanical things he wants to fix, something that has helped the ball come out better, is to stand tall in the pocket. He said he had a tendency to dip low at times, which is a flaw for a passer who needs to go through reads.

These are the little things that the casual observer might not notice, but a perfectionist like Palmer certainly does.

“I was getting really tall and erect in the pocket and not staying in a good position to be able to throw the ball as soon as somebody came open,” Palmer said. “I was having to sink and I was falling back on my heels, and then getting into the throwing rhythm. It’s something I’ve been really working on, especially working on my reads from right to left. Really staying in the same spot in the pocket, trying to stay right in the middle of the pocket, always ready to throw, rather than getting up to look around. I’ve been in the past kind of leaning back, falling off my throws. Just something small I’ve worked on a lot. It’s not perfected, but that’s why you have training camp.”

Arians summed it up in typical Arians’ way.

“You don’t want to be 6-5 and play 6-2,” Arians said. “He had tendency to play with his feet spread. He’s gotten them back under him. It may look like his arm is stronger, but he has better mechanics.”

In his two seasons with the Cardinals since coming over in a trade from the Raiders, Palmer is 16-6. The Cardinals were 9-1, atop the NFC West, when he went down for the year last season.

With a healthy Palmer, this Cardinals team is a Super Bowl contender again. He has already said it’s the most talented team he’s been on in Arizona.

The way the ball is coming off his arm, it’s hard not to think this team won’t be a real factor come January. The new version of Carson Palmer just might be better than the last one.