Instead, the focus was on the sideline, where Carson Palmer — after spending the first half wearing a black baseball cap and occasionally checking a clipboard — was finally putting on his helmet. As the buzz from the fans grew, Palmer threw a few warm-up passes, took a couple of practice snaps and then, after the Chiefs scored again, trotted onto the field to a standing ovation.
It had been nine months since Palmer last played in an N.F.L. game and, more important, only five days since the Raiders sent two draft picks to Cincinnati to end Palmer’s self-imposed exile from the Bengals. Still, the Raiders did not hesitate — the first play call for Palmer was a play-action pass, and he dropped back, found Darrius Heyward-Bey over the middle for 18 yards and took a late hit from Chiefs linebacker Tamba Hali without issue.
The fans roared. The Raiders on the sideline leapt. And Palmer had a spring in his step as he jogged toward the huddle.
“It felt good to get hit, actually, believe it or not,” Palmer said afterward. “It’s been a while since I played football.”
Of course, three plays later Palmer threw his first incompletion, and for the rest of the game he settled in for exactly the sort of performance one might expect from a quarterback who was practicing on high school fields in Southern California as recently as last week. There were a few moments of brilliance (a pretty completion on a timing route to Heyward-Bey) mixed with several that were less so (an interception by Brandon Flowers that was returned 58 yards for a touchdown).
“That’s Football 101,” Palmer said of Flowers’s interception, which came on a screen pass intended for Denarius Moore. “I can’t do that, and I knew it as soon as the ball came out of my hand.”
Despite the look of his overall numbers — Palmer finished 8 of 21 for 116 yards, with three interceptions — the Raiders found solace in his simply spending game time with his teammates.
Yes, the Raiders were embarrassed at home, 28-0, but Palmer threw passes wearing pads again (something he said took some getting used to) and made a concerted effort to communicate with other Raiders on the bench in between drives.
On a day like this, that had to be enough. Even Raiders Coach Hue Jackson conceded that he did not truly expect Palmer to lead a Raiders comeback from a three-touchdown deficit.
“I thought he could give us a spark,” Jackson said.
Ideally, Jackson added, Palmer would have played sparingly, if at all. Although Jackson was coy all week about who would be his starter, he said Sunday that Kyle Boller — the replacement for Jason Campbell, who broke his collarbone last week — took 80 percent of the first-team snaps during practice. “I wasn’t going to throw him to the wolves,” Jackson said of Palmer.
But Boller struggled against the Chiefs, completing just 7 of 14 passes for 61 yards and throwing three interceptions, including one that was returned 59 yards for a touchdown by Kendrick Lewis on Oakland’s first drive of the game.
“It just didn’t go as planned,” Boller said. “I feel like I let my teammates down.”
After the Raiders went three-and-out on the first drive of the third quarter, Jackson had seen enough, and Palmer, who acknowledged that he knew only “three or four” of the team’s pass protections, restarted his career.
He spent seven seasons with the Bengals, then spent the first six weeks of this season waiting at home in an attempt to force a trade. Now that he has succeeded, he plans to take the next two weeks to immerse himself in the system of his new team. (The Raiders have a bye next Sunday.)
With the A.F.C. West remaining wide open, expectations will rise quickly. Jackson said “there’s no doubt” that Palmer will be the starter when the Raiders face the Denver Broncos here on Nov. 6, and Palmer said he was ready to work.
“It’s not a bye week for me, that’s for sure,” Palmer said. “Two weeks is enough time for me to be where I need to be.”
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