The Raiders gave up a 2012 first-round draft pick and 2013 second-rounder to get a 32-year-old quarterback who was more or less retired from professional football.
Although the jury is still out on whether or not the trade was beneficial for the team, fans of the Oakland Raiders should put the utmost faith in Carson Palmer heading into the coming season.
Let me make a comparison: you are lost in the woods with little hope for survival. An unknown man shows up and says, “Follow me, do what I say, and I’ll get us out of this.”
That was like what Carson Palmer’s arrival was for the Raiders last season.
Raiders fans had been lost in the wilderness since the Tuck Rule Game in 2002. Finally, when things started to look up last year, Jason Campbell went down with a broken collarbone and the Oakland Raiders were looking like a confused lost puppy dog.
Enter Carson Palmer. He exits retirement to be reunited with his former offensive coordinator from USC where he won the Heisman Trophy. He was the Raiders' sole hope to save the season.
No one was sure what Palmer was going to do. He could have been Bear Grylls or he could have been an axe murderer there to make a bad situation even worse.
Many felt that Palmer was, and is, washed up but all agreed that if there was a situation for the 2005 AFC Player of the Year to succeed in, it was with the Raiders.
The issue going into this season is that he didn’t succeed. He didn’t exactly fail either, but the Raiders failed to make the playoffs and Palmer finished with 13 TDs compared to 16 INTs.
A lot of people look at the Palmer trad...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Oakland Raiders
