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Carson Palmer Most at Fault for Arizona Cardinals Losses

By Shaun Church

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We begin by stating facts: Carson Palmer is the heart and soul of the Arizona Cardinals offense. He is the core reason the team sits atop the NFC West division. However, he has also been the chief problem when the offense struggles and the team drops a game.

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Looking back at Arizona’s four wins this season, Palmer played brilliantly in key situations.

From third-down accuracy to red-zone decision-making, the 35-year-old field general marched the Cardinals down the field on an attack not seen since Kurt Warner led the team to a Super Bowl.

But in the team’s two losses, we saw a different Palmer—one who pressed the issue downfield too much, often into double coverage while leaving open receivers underneath scratching their heads.

Let’s take a look at two such plays.

On this play last week against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Palmer had receiver Jaron Brown and rookie running back David Johnson open at the sticks, either of whom would have picked up an easy first down on 3rd-and-5.

Palmer chose the deep route to John Brown, who had cornerback Antwon Blake and safety Mike Mitchell in tow.

Late in the same game with the Cardinals trailing by five, Palmer and the offense had a 1st-and-10 from the Pittsburgh 20-yard line. With receiver Larry Fitzgerald Coming open over the middle, Palmer should have taken what the Steelers were giving.

With all three timeouts remaining and the two-minute warning approaching, there was no reason for Palmer to force the ball again to Brown down the field. For one, Fitzgerald was open underneath and could have made a play to gain a first down. For another—and this is the biggest mistake—Mitchell is waiting for Brown over the top and ultimately makes an easy interception in the end zone.

Palmer’s stats in wins are remarkable; his stats in losses are troubling. Below is a series of charts showing his performance in wins and losses this season.

First up are his overall stats in wins and losses.

Completion percentage is nearly identical, but the touchdown-to-interception ratio is where we see a major difference. Why the massive differential?

Red-zone performance.

Overall, Palmer is tied for the league lead in red-zone touchdown passes and the Cardinals are ninth, scoring a touchdown on 68 percent of red-zone opportunities. But in losses, you can see Palmer’s struggles, and the offense is dead last in red-zone touchdown percentage, at 12.5 percent (1-of-8).

Lastly, we’ll look at third down.

Palmer has yet to throw an interception on the most critical of downs, but his completion percentage, yards per attempt and touchdown ratio all drop significantly in losses.

Other factors go into teams losing games. Palmer is obviously not the sole reason the Cardinals have lost two of the past three games—some protection issues, a struggling rushing attack and a lack of turnovers on the defensive side of the ball also contributed to the losses.

But all that aside, Palmer had opportunities in both the Steelers game last week and the Week 4 loss to the St. Louis Rams to go out and win the game for his team. He was inaccurate and made poor decisions throwing the ball in both instances and therefore took the losses.

It’s not as dire a situation as some teams currently face, but it’s worrisome nonetheless.

Next: How far did the Cards fall in this week's Power Rankings?

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