Palmer was the #1 fantasy QB in 2005. However, if he scored the same number of fantasy points last year, he would have finished as the #12 fantasy QB. Bottom line, Palmer would need a career year at effectively 34 years old to be a starting fantasy QB. He might be a decent back up, but I don't see him offering a competitive fantasy advantage.
That's an odd line of thinking. It's like saying if I bought a gallon of gas in 2005 it would cost $1.35. Now it would cost $3.89.
Peyton Manning and Tom Brady were in the league in 2005, so instead of looking at the numbers that resulted in #1 then and #12 now, wouldn't it be better to look at it in the context of what the players at the position were doing in the league? No matter how you slice it, he played at the same time of other great QBs and he was #1. THe game has changed though. I'm sure Manning's 2005 numbers or Favre's 2005 numbers wouldn't look the same as other years either.
Anyway, I think it goes too far to think Palmer won't be fantasy relevant. We can't predict health, of course, but we know the Arians pholosophy, we know the likeliehood that the Cards will be passing, and we know they have some good pass catchers. In today's NFL, I think that translates into relevancy. I don't want Palmer as my QB1 but I'm not crying if he has to take a few starts on any given Sunday this year as my fill in or injury replacement.
I'd take him over Ponder, Locker, Smith, Sanchez and those guys all the time and guys like Freeman, Bradford, etc in certain matchups.
Let's try this again. As others have mentioned, QB production has gone up since 2005. But if you look at the main QBs that are still in the league, their numbers are the ones that have had their production escalate. Drew Brees bested his 2005 fantasy totals 7 time, Peyton did it 6 times, and Brady 5 times. Most of those years for those guys were dramatically better than their numbers from 2005. The new crop of QBs throughout the league have also posted totals higher than the typical 2005 QB numbers.
However, that holds true for everyone but not Palmer. His totals have not escalated along with everyone else. In fact, his numbers have gone backwards since 2005, both in terms of total fantasy points but also in terms of individual category passing stats. In the 2007-2012 timeframe, on a seasonal basis he did not have a year scoring within 50 points of his 2005 season.
Playing almost a full season last year, Palmer was roughly in the middle of the road for NFL passers and that's probably where I would slot him in terms of fantasy. Of 32 NFL starting QBs, I'd rank him pretty much in the middle, which to me makes him about average.
In terms of whether ARI not being able to have a QB play a full season, I definitely think that that is relevant. Palmer is not the most mobile of QBs and is turning 34, and if the Cardinals had problems protecting the QB, Palmer would certainly be a pretty big target to tee off on. That doesn't mean he automatically is going to miss time, but it does make for cause for concern.
As for Arians, he was a HC or OC for CLE 01-03, PIT 07-11, and IND in 12. In terms of passing yards, his teams ranked 28, 18, 25, 22, 17, 9, 14, 10, and 7. In terms of passing TD, his teams ranked 21, T3, T20, T3, 18, 7, 21, 13, 9. That's an average of 17 in passing yards and 13th in passing TD, which admittedly doesn't mean much as a metric but still shows that he hasn't exactly been a modern day Mike Martz.
