TEMPE, Ariz. – Quarterback Carson Palmer, now in his fifth year with the Arizona Cardinals, meets the media every Wednesday during the regular season.

Here, in this space, with help from the Cardinals’ media relations staff, we’ll highlight many of the key topics and personnel conversations he has with reporters.

On getting some of his teammates back healthy:

“It’s been great to see, Smokey (John Brown) back out there this week or for one day, then Mike (Iupati) and D.J. (Humphries). So, I’m looking forward to getting them back in the fold.”

On how much he’s missed the injured starters:

“You miss every starter when you don’t have him. You miss Dave (David Johnson). You miss Smoke, the last couple weeks. It’s just good to get everybody in there. We’re not thin where one guy goes down, and we’ve got guys changing positions. We have some depth now that those guys are back, so it’s good.”

On why he thinks the Cardinals have struggled in the red zone:

“It’s never one thing but just execution. We’ve had some opportunities around the ball and just not quite all on the same page, here or there. Same thing in the passing game. We’ve had some opportunities to score, and we just haven’t executed the way that we expect ourselves to execute.”

On the team spending extra time on red zone offense this past offseason:

“Right. Yeah, we spent a lot of time on it. We’ll continue to work on it. Like I say all the time, it’s never something you feel that you’ve just got it and you don’t need to work on it. It’s always something you improve on, or want to improve on, and work to improve on, and we’re still doing that.”

On if the team is still adjusting to not having RB David Johnson in those situations:

“Yeah, he was obviously a monster down there in the red zone because he caught a bunch of touchdowns, and he ran in a bunch of touchdowns. He’s one of those guys. He’s irreplaceable. No matter what team he’s on, if he gets injured, he’s irreplaceable.

So, you go into the season with a ton of stuff built around him, and as soon as you lose him, you’ve got to change some things. Like I said, we’re still working on execution. We’re going to continue to do that as the season goes on without Dave.”

On how the mornings after games feel for him after he’s been sacked just once compared to multiple times:

“It’s never the number of times. It’s just there’s always that one hit when you are really sore, where you just get caught kind of wrong or land wrong and then they land on top of you wrong. It’s always dependent on that and not on the number of hits or sacks.”

On if that happened to him on Monday night:

“No. I feel great.”

On what he sees from the 49ers defense:

“The front seven jumps off the screen very, very quickly. There are three top-10 picks, probably. I don’t know the exact numbers those guys were drafted, but everybody can rush the passer. Everybody is a problem in the run game.

Then you add NaVorro Bowman in the mix, who I felt for a long time is one of the best linebackers in this league. He’s one of the best linebackers I’ve played against, and I’ve played against some really good ones.

Ray-Ray Armstrong looks really good, really fast, really athletic. And there’s speed on the back end. It’s a very good defense. You don’t look at their record, or you don’t factor in their record whatsoever. It’s a very, very good group, and it all starts up front with them.”

On if it gave him any confidence after having played well throughout last week’s game:

“No. We lost by multiple scores. It was a frustrating Tuesday, a long Tuesday because it’s hard to swallow a loss and get ready for practice on Wednesday and get all the film work you need to get done normally on Mondays and Tuesdays, all in one day.

So, a long Tuesday. I think everybody’s wearing it. Everybody was tired. We had a walkthrough today to kind of freshen us up. That was huge for us. We’ll bounce back in a full padded practice tomorrow, and be ready to roll and I’ll be ready to roll.”

On if he agrees with Coach Arians when he says that he is playing the best he has in the last two or three years:

“No. Again, you look at the wins and losses. I’m not worried about that. I’m not focused on myself whatsoever. I’m focused on execution. I think back to the last game and down there at the end of the game, I could have executed better and gotten it closer and given us a better chance. That part’s frustrating, and when you’re frustrated like that, it’s hard to think about anything else.”

On what he can do to help T Jared Veldheer play better:

“I’ve got as much respect and trust in Jared as I’ve had in any offensive lineman I’ve ever played with, and I’ve played with Jared for six years. He was protecting my blind side for a long time, and now he’s on the other side. I talked to him today. You just bounce back, and I know he’ll bounce back. Like I said, I have a ton of respect, a ton of trust in him. The way he works, the way he prepares, I just know he’ll bounce back, and I have faith in him.”

On the magnitude of Sunday’s game against a division opponent and having a 1-2 record:

“Huge. Like I said earlier, their record does not matter. Every time we play San Francisco, they give us their best shot. They’ve always played really, really well against us – really, really hard against us. They’re playing hard on film, and this is a very good defense.

I don’t know what’s on the other side of the ball, but this is a very good defense. We’re in a difficult spot, as you said, coming off a loss on a short week with a team that’s got 10 or so days rest. This is a huge game for us.”

On how close the 49ers played the Seahawks and Rams:

“Yeah, they are heartbreaking losses in those two games. A play here or a play there, they could be 2-1 very, very easily.”

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