Arizona Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer acknowledged in May he had "no idea" if he would play beyond this season.
To keep Palmer fresh, the team has taken a different approach with their 37-year old signal-caller this spring -- vastly reducing his throwing days -- and the results have paid off.
"I think [his arm] is stronger than ever,"Â coach Bruce Arians said Wednesday during mandatory minicamp, per The Associated Press. "He threw a couple of deep balls today that were the old Carson, 55 yards, dropped them in a bucket."
Midway through last season, Arians began giving his quarterback Wednesdays off, a pattern seemingly linked to Palmer's surge down the stretch. The veteran also went without throwing during March, April and early organized team activities.
"It's done great things for him, plus all the strengthening he did weight room-wise with all the trainers," said Arians, who went on to attribute some of Palmer's issues with deep passes last season to the fact that "wideout] [John Brown couldn't run due to illness] and [pass-catcher] [Michael Floyd dropped about five."
As for concerns over his age, Palmer insisted Wednesday that his senior status comes with a few benefits.
"I think it's easier to play the quarterback position later on in your career because of the repetition," Palmer said. "... Guys can have success into their 30s just because you rely so much on experience, so much on 'been there, done that' type of situations."
The hope in Arizona is Palmer can keep the deep ball spinning from wire to wire, while the Cardinals use plenty of running back David Johnson to balance out an attack trying to get back to the heights it achieved in 2015.
Here in June -- still a long way from actual games -- the arrow is pointing up.
