Week 21 QB projections • OAK Stats
QB Carson Palmer, Oakland Raiders
HT: 6-5, WT: 230, Born: 12-27-1979, College: Southern California, Drafted: Round 1, Pick 1
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Stats and Week 21 Projection
| WK | OPP | RES | CMP | ATT | PYD | Y/A | PTD | INT | RSH | YD | Y/R | TD | FPT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEASON TOTAL | 199 | 328 | 2751 | 8.4 | 13 | 16 | 16 | 20 | 1.3 | 1 | 179 | ||
Week 21 Injury Status and Other News
No official injury reports have been released yet
Week 21 Matchup Info
The Oakland Raiders have a bye this week.
Game Summaries
Week 7 vs KC - With 10:25 left in the third quarter Carson Palmer entered to the loudest cheers he'd hear all day. It would be easy to look at his 3 interceptions compared to Boller's and think that Palmer was equally ineffective, but that would be completely false. First, for those three interceptions. His first was a hitch route to DeNarius Moore. Brandon Flowers baited Palmer into the throw and the DeNarius Moore fell down as Flowers took it to the house. The second pick was also to Moore, this time just a little behind him. Moore deflected the ball into the arms of a Chiefs defender. The third pick was just atrocious; Palmer was being pressured and looked like a rookie throwing the ball up in the middle of the field. Still, as bad as all that sounds, there were some bright moments. Palmer was fearless from the start, several times finding Darrius Heyward-Bey (clearly his favorite target) in tight spots. Palmer also made use of the tight ends and seemed to be doing a good job of going through all of his progressions. He was not helped out by his receivers (other than DHB) who spent more time falling down and dropping passes than they did helping him. Palmer made some impressive throws amidst the rust.Week 9 vs DEN - This was Palmer's first start since he was traded a couple of weeks ago. He had a few mistakes but for the most part he looked pretty good for a guy that was on the couch two weeks ago. Palmer seemed to build a rapport with WR Denarius Moore, who got most of Palmer's looks as he got a team-leading 12 targets. Palmer best pass of the day came on his second touchdown pass of the game. He found FB Marcel Reese running down the seam; Palmer rifled a ball in a tight window, and Reece came up with it for the score. Palmer had another great TD pass to Jacoby Ford. Palmer dropped the pass over a defender in the corner of the end zone, and Ford made a great leaping grab. Palmer looked comfortable with the offense and should do some great things with these talented receivers. Also, the arm strength was there and Carson looked closer to pre-elbow injury Carson Palmer.
Week 10 at SD - Not that there are a lot of games to compare it to, but this was by far Palmer's best game as a Raider. For most of the evening, Carson Palmer played at or near a perfect passer rating. He was given ample time by his offensive line, he performed well despite losing top target Jacoby Ford early on, and stopped a losing streak as he led the Raiders into first place in the division. Palmer's favorite target in the game was clearly rookie WR Denarius Moore, who he connected with five times for 123 yards and both of his touchdown passes. The first touchdown was a great route run by Moore and Palmer found him streaking across the front of the goal line for a 33-yard score. Later, Palmer floated a perfect pass down the sideline to Moore in the corner of the end zone from 26 yards out. They had earlier connected on a long 46-yard pass play that could have gone for a score, but the ball was thrown just a bit out in front of Moore, causing him to stumble a bit as he lunged for the pass. Palmer did turn the ball over twice, once on a fumble when he was chased from behind and didn't see the tackler coming. The second was a pass down to the goal line where he was hit as he threw. The collision caused the ball to pop up in the air, and the San Diego defender easily came down with the ball for the interception. But Palmer regrouped and saved perhaps his best pass for last. With Oakland controlling the ball and looking to run the clock down, they faced a third down and long. Palmer stepped up in the pocket and fired an off-balance pass over the middle to TE Kevin Boss. It was a nice catch, but the ball beat the defender by mere inches. While it didn't officially clinch the game, it did force the Chargers to burn their timeouts so by the time they got the ball back, there was almost no chance of them getting into scoring range.
Week 11 at MIN - After throwing for more than 600 yards in the previous two games, Palmer performed more of a 'game manager' role for the Raiders in this contest. Despite 17 completions, he had just 164 yards passing, and just six of his completions went to wide receivers. Palmer started the game with short check down passes to Kevin Boss and Michael Bush, trying to keep the chains moving and feel out the defense. At halftime he already had 104 yards passing, including the 11 yard TD strike to Chaz Schilens. In the second half, Palmer looked like he might open the offense up a bit, but when DHB went down and was carted off the field, Palmer resorted to just handing the ball off and grinding the clock. He had just one short check-down pass to Marcel Reece in the final 12 minutes of the game. Palmer's TD run was nothing special -- after an 11 yard pass to Kevin Boss brought the Raiders down to the 1, Palmer ran two consecutive QB sneaks to get into the end zone. He kept the game under control from an NFL prospective, and did what was needed to give his team the win. From a fantasy prospective though, he was a disappointment after two big weeks of throwing the ball.
Week 12 vs CHI - Palmer didn't have his best game on Sunday but was able lead his team to an important win. The Bears defense played well, and Palmer would have had a couple more interceptions if the Bears defenders had better hands. Palmer was missing his two best WR's in Jacoby Ford & Denarius Moore. This hampered the downfield attack but Palmer was able to use FB Marcel Reece for some long gains. Most of the passes to Reece were short passes that he turned into long gains. Palmer's timing with his WR's seemed to be off, and he is still trying to gain rapport with them. But the biggest reason for all 6 of the Raider FGs was that the Bears defense would get a timely sack that would force the Raiders into a 3rd & long situation. On top of that Palmer had a TD catch dropped by the usually sure handed FB Marcel Reece. Palmer also had a TD pass called back due to a holding call. So this could have been a little bit better game for Palmer. But this was not a terrible game considering Palmer was up against a ferocious defense and without his top two targets.
Week 13 at MIA - Bad day for Palmer. He was called for an intentional grounding call early on but beyond that he almost threw an interception to Randy Starks, also had an interception by Karlos Dansby called back due to a Miami penalty. In his defense though he has his 2 of his top3 WRs out and his RB1 in Darren McFadden is also out so there isn't as much speed for a team like Miami to actually cover. He was off target and then a pass tipped off the hands of Louis Murphy and Kevin Boss ended up in Kevin Burnett's hands as he ran it back about 30 yards for a touchdown and put Miami ahead 34-0 at that point of the football game. Palmer managed a little window dressing with a couple late touchdowns and that probably saved the day from being a complete disaster for most owners but you need to know that Palmer was not good in terms of NFL standards despite some garbage points for fantasy owners. He was off target a lot but suffered from both dropped passes and penalties which nullified plays.
Week 14 at GB - Palmer was flat out terrible for much of this game and didn't get much help from his receivers when he wasn't. His first pick went directly into the arms of a Packers' defender as he clearly didn't look comfortable throwing on the move. Palmer did have good timing with Chaz Schilens on an out route and found Louis Murphy wide open over the middle, but most of his passes were dropped in the first quarter, including his best throw of the quarter on a deep out to TJ Houshmanzadeh. Palmer's first throw of the second quarter was also dropped, but this time by a Packer. Palmer started to lead a little drive before the half, but when he finally went deep he underthrew Kevin Boss in triple coverage for his 3rd pick of the day. Palmer looked short a lot more in the third quarter and made a nice throw in tight coverage to Heyward Bey for 34 yards to put the Raiders in position for their first TD. Still, the damage had been done and Palmer spent most of the rest of the day playing against the Packers backups. He did lead another TD drive long after the game had been decided, throwing a short TD pass to Boss who caught the ball short of the goal line and fell into the end zone. For good measure, Palmer threw one more pick at the end of the game, a woefully underthrown pass. Palmer clearly suffered from a lack of healthy receivers, but nonetheless had a dreadful afternoon.
Week 15 vs DET - He was pretty accurate for most of the game. The Raiders did not lose the football game because of Carson Palmer. He was 3/3 or 91 yds and a TD on the 1st drive of the 2nd quarter for the Raiders which helped them get out to a 14-7 lead. Palmer is best when he can work the short game and then allow his receivers to make big plays after they catch the football. He missed a wide open Denarius Moore in the 1st quarter as the DB covering him fell down on the play. Palmer had the Raiders up 20-14 when the defense extended the lead to 27-14 with about 8 minutes to go, everything looked good. The one criticism would be his lack of attempts down the field to stretch the defense even more. Outside of that it was largely the Oakland pass defense down the stretch that let the team down.
Week 16 at KC - Two good throws carried the day for Palmer who struggled throughout and does not seem to be making much progress in developing a rapport with his receivers. The pass rush really bothered Palmer early on as he was panicking before the rush even got there and definitely had his eyes on this pass rush and not downfield from time to time. He threw two picks in the first quarter, but one was called back because of a penalty. The pick that counted was again a result of the pass rush. Palmer was leveled as he targeted Kevin Boss and the ball fluttered over the tight ends head and into the waiting arms of a Chiefs' defender. He seemed to get into a bit of a rhythm early in the second quarter, completing 5 straight passes to 4 different receivers. He hit longtime target TJ Houshmanzadeh on an 11 yard out, fit a 20 yard strike through a pinhole to Denarius Moore and hit on a couple of dump offs as well. Palmer was fortunate to avoid an INT when he went deep to Moore later in the quarter considering there were three Chiefs in the area and two of them got a hand on the ball. He wasn't as fortunate two plays later when he was duped by safety Javier Arena and threw a short pass directly to the second year player. After starting the second half with a couple of dinks and dunks, Palmer connected with Moore on a 61 yard bomb for the Raiders only TD of the day. Moore had 3-4 steps on the safety, so the fact that he had to slow for the ball didn't matter as he easily scored the TD. He only threw 6 more passes the rest of regulation as the Raiders were trying (to no avail) to run the clock out with the lead. However, Palmer started OT with another bomb and this one put the Raiders in position for the game winning FG. The 53 yard pass was thrown to the outside, where only his receiver could catch it and was a fitting way to end the day for Palmer. Without the two bombs he connected on he was just 14/24 for 133 yards and 2 picks. But with those two bombs he was a winner, and the Raiders were still alive in the playoff race.
Week 17 vs SD - Palmer put up big numbers in this game, but had a tough time sealing the deal in getting Oakland enough points to hang with the Chargers. He did throw two scores, but Oakland had to settle for four field goals, showing their inefficiency in getting it across the goal line. What's more, Palmer was part of a boneheaded play late in the first half that directly cost his team points. With Oakland already in field goal range but with no timeouts remaining, he completed a pass over the middle that ran out the clock. He also threw one interception that wasn't really his fault, and should have thrown another two that were outright dropped by the defenders. It wasn't all bad, however, as Palmer's two touchdown passes were both perfectly thrown balls. The first was a fade over the head of WR Darrius Heyward-Bey in the corner of the end zone. The receiver actually juggled the ball a bit and appeared to be out of bounds, but replay did not overturn the call. Palmer's other score was a bullet over the middle to TE Kevin Boss, a perfectly thrown ball that was thrown right where it had to be. The Raider passing game at one point was firing on all cylinders, as Palmer was finding everyone and converting third downs with confident passes. There was no pressure on him, and it showed. He completed a 78-yard bomb down the sideline to WR Denarius Moore for a huge gain to the San Diego 11-yard line, though the Raiders couldn't convert the score. Unfortunately for Palmer, his afternoon ended with the aforementioned interception that wasn't his fault. WR Jacoby Ford slipped during his route, and the defender sat there waiting for the easy interception to all but end the game.