This Sunday, Carson Palmer will play in Oakland, three years to the day the Raiders acquired him via tradefor a first-round pick in 2012 and a second-round pick in 2013to end their revolving door at quarterback.Except he will play against them, as he plays out his contract year with the Arizona Cardinals, having solidified their quarterback position which had been in flux since Kurt Warner retired after the 2009 season.Cardinals general manager Steve Keim acknowledged Friday the franchise has had discussions of a new deal with Palmer, telling Kent Somers of The Arizona Republic: I won't get into specific points of the negotiations, but we've had some dialogue with [Palmer's agent] Dave Dunn. [Palmer] has done a great job for us.Extending Palmer's contract is a classic risk versus reward football decision, with plenty of arguments to be made on each side. Regardless of how long Palmer is wearing a Cardinals uniform, acquiring him from the Oakland Raiders for a swap of late 2013 draft choices and a seventh-round selection in the 2014 draft has been arguably Keims best move since being promoted to Cardinals general manager in January 2013.Palmer is currently in the second year of a three-year deal, with the caveat that the third year is voided if he remains on the roster five days after the Super Bowl, which was done to prorate his signing bonus over three years rather than two.The Argument For Carson PalmerThe Cardinals are 14-7 since the start of the 2013 season, including 12-6 with Palmer under center, compared to 18-30 (.375) in the three seasons prior (2010-12) after winning the division in 2009 in Warners final season in the NFL.Cardinals Starting Quarterbacks, 2010-12201020112012TotalJohn Skelton2-25-21-58-9Kevin Kolb3-63-26-8Derek Anderson2-72-7Ryan Lindley1-31-3Max Hall1-21-2Brian Hoyer0-10-1In Palmers last 11 starts, dating back to Week 8 of the 2013 season, he has completed 65.4 percent of his passes with 20 touchdowns and nine interceptions, while the Cardinals are 9-2.That includes a Week 17 loss vs. San Francisco last season which carried no playoff implications, despite entering the game with a 10-5 record, as the New Orleans Saints had already clinched the final wild-card spot with their win over Tampa Bay before the Cardinals game even kicked off.Darren Urban, beat reporter for the Cardinals official site, wrote earlier this week how Palmer is the Cardinals anchor and has stabilized the quarterback position. Urban wrote he was elected captain by a landslide margin, and he provides confidence and a calming influence in the locker room and on the field.Palmer said: Were just getting started. Im just getting started here. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I think were getting ready to define hopefully my time here and our time as a team.He threw for over 4,000 yards last season and is off to a good start (4 TD, 0 INT) this season in his second year in head coach Bruce Arians offense.ESPN.coms Josh Weinfuss wrote that Arians offensewhich is heavily based on the deep pass and manipulating secondaries into committing in one direction or the other, according to Bleacher Reports Sean Tomlinsonis so tough to learn and absorb that moving forward without Palmer locked up would be two steps back for the franchise.Palmer is not being mistaken here as an elite NFL quarterback, but he falls into at least the average to above-average tier and fits the Cardinals' blueprint. Arians described Palmer and the Cardinals' philosophy perfectly before the season, saying: There are a handful of elite guys. But there are guys you can take and when you put a great defense around them, they can win games.The Argument Against Carson PalmerPalmer is 34 years old, so it is inevitable that in the near-future the Cardinals need to find a long-term solution at the quarterback position. Thirty-year-old Drew Stanton is a serviceable backup and led the Cardinals to a pair of wins when Palmer was injured earlier this season, but the true intrigue on the current roster lies in 2014 fourth-round pick Logan Thomas.Thomas had accuracy issues in college, but he was drafted as a developmental project with tremendous physical tools and could not have found a better landing spot than under Arians' tutelage.He gets a pass for his Week 5 performance in what was essentially an emergency situation against Denverand should fulfill the redshirt role for the remainder of this season. He may be a long shot to ever develop into an NFL starting quarterback, but he has been compared to a poor mans Cam Newton due to his athleticism and strong arm.The other serious concern with negotiating an extension with Palmer now is that he missed a month already this season due to a sleeping nerve in his shoulder. Palmer acknowledged during that span the injury was not season- or career-threatening, but said it did not progress as much as he had hoped, while ESPNs Ed Werder tweeted the team felt he was about 80 percent following his return against Washington:Still, its a worrisome issue, even if Palmer feels the worst is behind him, as Urban tweeted. Greg Roskopf, founder and CEO of Muscle Activation Techniques, told Pro Football Talk: It has to wake up and stay awake. Its a very delicate line.If he exceeds his tolerance level at the time, then it almost puts it back to sleep. It shuts it down again.On the field, despite his playand the Cardinals successof late, Palmer has always been turnover-prone, as his 22 interceptions tied for second in the NFL last year.Furthermore, he has never won a postseason game in his career (0-2), prompting the question of whether he is good enough to lead the Cardinalseven behind a young (with the exception of Larry Fitzgerald) and exciting offensive nucleus and a formidable defense.Lets Talk NumbersKeim has previously said and has since reiterated he will feel really good about where the Cardinals are from a salary-cap standpoint heading into the 2015 season.That being said, albeit with a few exceptions, starting quarterbacks do not often hit the free-agency market. NFL.coms Kevin Patra referred to extensions signed by Andy Dalton and Colin Kaepernick before this season as pay-as-you-go contracts, while Alex Smith signed a four-year extension with the Kansas City Chiefs, averaging $17 million a season.Kurt Warners last contract extension with the Cardinals was for two years, $23 million, with $19 million guaranteed. Arizona will want to model a new deal for Palmer off that, but the money will almost certainly be more, given how quarterback salaries have increased since then.Palmers camp will probably start negotiations asking for an unrealistic four years, so the expectation here is the two sides meet in the middle and work toward a three-year extension.Phoenix radio host Mike Jurecki projects a three-year deal, averaging $12-15 million per season:My best guess is Palmer will eventually sign in the upper echelon of that range or exceed it$15-16 million annually on a short-term deal and the Cardinals will add significant injury protection to his new contract.The VerdictThe bottom line is the Cardinals (4-1) currently lead the AFC West over preseason favorites San Francisco (4-2) and Seattle (3-2), have been one of the NFLs best teams since the second half of last season and are constructed in such a way that they can succeed in the playoffseven with Palmer at quarterbackonce they get there.The safe move, due to health purposes, would be to wait until this offseason and revisit extension talks then, but the savvy move would be to agree on a new deal now. There would be obvious risks involved, but he may sign at a discount due to his nerve injury in his right shoulder.Furthermore, if Palmer takes the Cardinals to the playoffs and strings together a couple of wins there, his asking price will justifiably get higher.The Cardinals are built to win now, so a three-year extension makes sense without a clear-cut better option in house. A three-year deal would take Palmer through his age-37 season, giving the Cardinals continuity at the position through 2017, which is when much of their current core on offense will be playing in or entering their prime. Even if the Cardinals still view Thomas as their quarterback of the future, it is hard to imagine him being thrown in the fire as early as next season. And, assuming playoffs in 2014, it is doubtful they find a first-round quarterback between pick Nos. 21-32 who gives them a better chance at winning in the immediate future than Palmer.An extension would not write off the possibility of taking a first- or second-round quarterback in the draftwhich they have done only once since 1998 (Matt Leinart)but it would buy them time to do so and to groom as Palmers replacement down the road.It took the Cardinals three seasons to find a capable replacement after Warner retired, and the rest of the roster is too talented now to move forward without a legitimate option. There are no certainties in the NFL when it comes to the draft, so the Cardinals should keep Palmer for as long as he can do the job.
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