Cardinals QB Palmer admits ‘being tentative bit us in the butt’ vs. Green Bay

TEMPE, Ariz. — Playing it safe is not how the Arizona Cardinals operated offensively in the regular season.

Yet in the postseason, at least for one half of football, that’s exactly what happened.

And it won’t happen again, according to quarterback Carson Palmer.

Playing in his first playoff game in six years and eager to change the narrative with the first postseason victory of his career, Palmer was conservative in his play-calling choices early in the Divisional Round matchup against Green Bay.

Palmer called for shorter receiver routes rather than the deep shots down the field.

“Just to get some completions,” he explained Wednesday.

Palmer completed eight of his 14 first-half pass attempts with none longer than 20 yards.

The script flipped in the second half.

Palmer went 17-of-27 for 275 yards in the second half and overtime, four times completing passes that gained better than 20 yards, including the 75-yard catch-and-run by Larry Fitzgerald to set up the game-winning touchdown.

“I think just wanting so bad, maybe too bad, and being too tentative. That’s not my style. That’s not our head coach’s style,” Palmer said. “This is not a tentative offense and I think being tentative bit us in the butt in the first half, and we came out with a different mindset, and I came out with a different mindset, at halftime.”

In other words, lesson learned.

“That was a game where he picked a lot of shorter completions early, instead of going for them like we normally do,” head coach Bruce Arians said. “I think that was part of, ‘I don’t want to screw up.’  Now that we don’t have to worry about doing that anymore, we can go back to being ourselves.”

And that would be the “no risk it, no biscuit” Arians philosophy that earned the Cardinals the No. 1 offense in the NFL for the first time in franchise history.

With Palmer under center, the Cardinals set team records in total points (489), total touchdowns (58), total yards (6,533), yards per game (408.3), games scoring 30 or more points (9) and wins by 10 or more points (8).

Palmer, who dismissed a question about whether his finger is still bothering him — “No, there is not issue with my finger,” he said — established franchise-single season records for passing yards (4,671), touchdown passes (35) and passer rating (104.6).

That’s the Palmer, Arians believes, who will show up for the NFC Championship Game on Sunday in Carolina; a quarterback leading an offense that throws caution to the wind.

“I think everybody got (the playoff jitters) out of the way, and with it especially being such a tight game, it was very beneficial to us,” Arians said. “I think this (week’s) preparation already; you can see a different football team.  It looks like a lot of energy, a lot of focus, maybe not as much apprehension.”

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