Arizona Cardinals

It's not too early for the Cardinals to search for Carson Palmer's successor

Published Mar. 7, 2017 8:00 a.m. ET

Sam Gardner

INDIANAPOLIS — A hard-luck year nearly got worse for the Arizona Cardinals this winter when reports surfaced that quarterback Carson Palmer and wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald were both considering retirement following a season that saw the club regress from 13-3 and the brink of the Super Bowl to 7-8-1 and the middle of the pack in the NFC.

Those concerns — that the team would be forced to replace franchise cornerstones at two vitally important positions — were eventually alleviated when Palmer, 37, and Fitzgerald, 33, each announced in February that they’d be returning for 2017. But the future of the quarterback position, in particular, is still of great concern to Cardinals GM Steve Keim, who acknowledged recently that he’d be forced to address the situation soon, regardless of Palmer’s status beyond this year.

“It is a tough balance, but that’s my job, to look at the long-term health of the organization,” Keim said last week at the NFL Combine. “So we have to make those kinds of decisions. And really, to me, there’s no better time to take a young quarterback (than) when you have a guy like Carson, who can help develop him.”

Bruce Arians and Steve Keim

A longtime member of the Cardinals organization who was promoted to the GM role in 2013, Keim spoke with Palmer the night before the veteran announced his decision to return, and said that Palmer was open to the idea of mentoring his eventual replacement. However Palmer, who is set to earn a base salary of $15.5 million, still figures to be the team’s starter in Week 1.

“Carson told me that all the coaching things are great, but some of the best things to develop a young quarterback are a veteran quarterback,” Keim said. “He learned that from Jon Kitna (who started over Palmer during Palmer’s rookie season in 2003), and maybe it wasn’t technical things. Maybe it was how to prepare off the field, how to study film.

“To me,” Keim continued, “Carson would be a great role model for a young quarterback.”

It’s unknown whether Keim would look to acquire an heir apparent through free agency or the draft, but head coach Bruce Arians said at the Combine that he’s seen “five to six really good arms” among this year’s class. The Cardinals currently have eight total picks, including the No. 13 overall selection, but Keim said he won’t feel pressured to take a bad fit in the first round just because quarterback happens to be a position of need.

Larry Fitzgerald and Carson Palmer

“We know it’s a quarterback-driven league, but at the end of the day — and I’ve said this many times — you can’t force the pick, either,” Keim said. “You’ve got to really like what you see on tape, off the field. Because if you take a quarterback high and he doesn’t pan out, it’s going to set you back for years. Because you have to give him time to develop. You have to give him a chance. And if you miss and you miss high, it’s going to cost you.”

Arians, the team’s head coach since 2013, echoed that sentiment.

“Part of it is what’s on your roster,” Arians said. “Do you need a guy right away? If I needed a guy right away, I’d be looking for a certain type of player that might come out of a different system that is more NFL ready. But he’s still got to have the arm strength and the talent to play the game. He has to have the physical stature to play the position, along with that mental approach and the heart.

“The heart is easy, you can find that out,” Arians continued. “The mental approach, that’s hard, until you have him in your huddle. It’s different when I can groom a guy for a year, which I’ve never really had to do. The guys that I’ve had, they were plug-in players, and they learned by failure.”

Carson Palmer

With any luck, however, Arizona’s next quarterback will have a year or two — Palmer is technically under contract through 2018 — to grow behind a winner.

“When I was coming up and everyone was running the wishbone, it was really hard to find a quarterback,” Arians said with a laugh. “But with the spread offense and other offenses that they’re playing in, it’s just a little bit more developmental time. They’re good players, and they’re excellent in their offense, but the developmental time to become an elite NFL player, that’s the line you’re looking for.”

Fortunately for the Cardinals, they already have just the guy to lead that maturation process, regardless of whom his young replacement happens to be.

“I think the one thing about Carson is he’s a true pro, so he gets it,” Keim said. “There are a lot of times when he and I spend time just talking about our roster, and he gives me great perspective in that area. To be able to have an older player who’s got that kind of experience, to be able to lean on (him) and hear what he has to say about guys in the locker room and those sort of things, there’s no doubt that he understands.

“He wants the right thing for the organization,” Keim continued. “He’s mature enough to look at the big picture, and there’s no doubt in my mind, if we do draft a young guy or a sign a young guy in free agency, that he would step up to the plate.”

You can follow Sam Gardner on Twitter or email him at samgardnerfox@gmail.com.