Carson Palmer Faces Obstacles to Playing for Raiders

“I went to bed last night at 10:30 a retired football player,” Palmer said Tuesday at his introductory news conference. “And I got the text message at 4 a.m. and was told to get on a plane to Oakland.”

In the days since, increasing speculation about Palmer and the Raiders has been fueled by the team’s coyness about whether he will play on Sunday. But the stark reality of Palmer’s situation cannot be ignored. He has not played in an N.F.L. game since January. Before this week, he had not been with an N.F.L. team since his trade-me-or-else standoff with the Cincinnati Bengals began shortly thereafter. And the sum of his football action in the past nine months has been limited to three practices and multiple passing workouts at Southern California high schools and parks.

So, with the Raiders set to face the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, what can reasonably be expected from Palmer?

Ken O’Brien, a former Jets quarterback, coached Palmer when he was at U.S.C. and has become a family friend and personal coach for him. In a telephone interview this week, O’Brien said that Palmer’s throwing arm looked as strong as ever during their workouts but that he would still face considerable challenges if he were to play against the Chiefs.

“It’s been four days,” O’Brien said. “It sounds crazy, but you have to learn everyone’s name. You have to learn the routes and the hot reads. You have to learn the cadence. You have to learn the timing.”

He added: “And then when it’s over? You have to learn the game plan for the team you’re playing.”

Pete Carroll, Palmer’s coach at U.S.C. who is now with the Seattle Seahawks, had a similar opinion.

“I just hope that expectations will balance out,” Carroll said in a telephone interview. “People are talking like the Raiders are going to the Super Bowl. They’ve got to give him some slack. He hasn’t thrown a ball in a game in months.”

Raiders Coach Hue Jackson was evasive all week about whether Palmer would start Sunday, and he continued to be on Friday. Referring to Palmer, Kyle Boller and Terrelle Pryor, Jackson said, “I think all three of the guys are ready to play.”

The three shared first-team snaps Friday, added Jackson, who would not rule out the possibility that multiple quarterbacks could see action against the Chiefs.

Still, the public focus remains on Palmer. A poll on the Web site CSNBayArea.com showed that 67 percent of respondents, as of Friday afternoon, had voted for Palmer to start on Sunday.

Palmer was noncommittal.

“I’m getting as prepared as I can,” he said. “I’m excited about the opportunity just to run on the field, let alone get a chance to play.”

When Palmer does play, whether it is this weekend or not, he will be attempting to live up to some considerable expectations. A former Heisman Trophy winner, he was a two-time Pro Bowler with the Bengals but struggled with injuries and eventually soured on the sometimes dysfunctional franchise.

Palmer had knee surgery in 2006, then played only four games in 2008 after tearing ligaments in his elbow. Since then, there have been questions about whether his arm strength has diminished, though Jackson said he had been pleased with what Palmer had shown in his few practices.

Despite his dispute with the Bengals, Palmer kept busy, which is probably why the Raiders are even considering playing him this weekend. During the off-season, he worked out with O’Brien and other friends in Southern California, including Chiefs quarterback Matt Cassel, who was Palmer’s college roommate. Once the N.F.L. season began, O’Brien said he worked out with Palmer several days a week “wherever we could find grass” around Los Angeles.

They did drills, worked on footwork and threw to whatever receivers they could find — sometimes former professionals like T. J. Houshmandzadeh or Danny Farmer, sometimes high school kids.

“I caught some, but I didn’t do too much route running,” the 51-year-old O’Brien said. “That would really throw off his timing.”

Palmer was stoic about his situation with the Bengals during the workouts — “He stuck to his guns, but we didn’t talk much about it,” O’Brien said — and the two traded text messages after the news broke that the Raiders were pushing to trade for Palmer as a replacement for Jason Campbell, who broke his collarbone last week.

O’Brien said the one thing observers would most notice about Palmer was that “he is totally healthy now,” a development O’Brien said he believed would allow Palmer to return to the upper tier of quarterbacks in the league.

How quickly that can happen, however, is a subject of more significant debate. Many Raiders fans, and maybe even some members of the Raiders organization, want to see Palmer right away. But if he plays Sunday, O’Brien cautioned, it has to be seen in perspective. There is a large gap between the speed of a workout and the speed of an N.F.L. game, and that is something players struggle with even after they have gone through a full training camp. Palmer had no camp at all.

“There’s no doubt he’s going to get back to form,” O’Brien said. “It’s just a matter of getting his timing down. To be really comfortable? It’s going to take some time to get used to it.”

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N.F.L. Roundup: Carson Palmer Gets Going With Raiders

But the Raiders’ offensive coordinator, Al Saunders, went on a Kansas City radio show Wednesday morning and said that Palmer would be his starting quarterback Sunday against the Chiefs “as long as he’s breathing.”

Palmer, 31, was breathing — hard — during his first post-practice media session Wednesday. In the span of about six minutes he admitted to rust, unfamiliarity with his receivers, unfamiliarity with the playbook, unfamiliarity with Oakland in general, a lack of game-ready football preparation and, most important, a dearth of time to get up to speed — whether or not he’s playing.

Palmer shook hands in the huddle as he introduced himself to his teammates and by his own estimation he still had not met more than 30 percent of the roster.

One thing working in his favor is a coach who knows him. Jackson recruited Palmer as an assistant at U.S.C., and, as the Bengals’ receivers coach, worked with him from 2004 to ’06.

SAMPLE-COLLECTION STALEMATE Nearly two months after it had hoped to start blood testing for human growth hormone, and several days after two congressmen announced there was a deal to begin collecting blood samples immediately, the N.F.L. and its players union remained at a standstill over the program Wednesday.

This week, the N.F.L. sent a letter to the union saying it was prepared to start collecting blood Monday that would be held until the final details of a testing plan were worked out. The union’s response was: No, not yet.

“We informed the N.F.L. yesterday that absent a collective agreement on several critical issues, blood collection is not ready to be implemented on Monday,” the union said in a statement Wednesday.

Adolpho Birch, the league executive who oversees the drug testing program, said, “It’s directly counter to what everyone in that room Friday heard.”

If the stalemate continues, the sides may have to again meet with members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Last Friday, Representatives Darrell Issa, Republican of California, and Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, told representatives of the union and the league that if blood collection had not begun within two weeks, they would be called back for a meeting that, the congressmen told them “would not be pretty,” according to two people who were present.

The proposal to begin the collection of blood —  but not to test it —  was the idea of Issa and Cummings. According to people present at the meeting, Issa went around the table asking if everybody agreed to that idea and everyone — including representatives from the union, which did not include the executive director DeMaurice Smith — did. When Issa said that he and Cummings were going to tell reporters that a deal had been reached to collect blood samples, nobody objected.

George Atallah, the union spokesman, said that the union perceived the N.F.L.’s letter as an announcement that it planned to impose testing, which prompted the union’s response. Birch said the league would not attempt to begin blood collection next week unless the union agreed.   JUDY BATTISTA

BRADFORD SITS OUT The newly acquired Brandon Lloyd looked good in his first practice with the St. Louis Rams. Mark Clayton’s back, too. Now they just need someone to get them the ball. Quarterback Sam Bradford did not practice Wednesday while getting treatment for a high left ankle sprain, increasing the likelihood the journeyman A. J. Feeley will get the call Sunday at Dallas. (AP)

TEBOW HELPING DOLPHINS Tim Tebow is giving the winless Miami Dolphins a welcome boost in ticket sales. Tebow will make his first start of the season Sunday when the Denver Broncos play at Miami, and the Dolphins’ chief executive, Mike Dee, said he was optimistic the game would be a sellout. More than 10,000 tickets have been sold since Tebow was promoted to the starting job last week, Dee said. (AP)

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS Houston quarterback Matt Schaub’s bruised chest won’t keep him out this week, but it’s likely that Andre Johnson will miss his third straight game since minor surgery to his right hamstring. (AP)

OWENS HEALTHY AGAIN Terrell Owens is ready to return to the N.F.L. Owens has been rehabilitating a left knee injury that required surgery. He is a free agent and his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, says he will begin contacting teams immediately to let them know Owens is healthy. (AP)

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Raiders Acquire Carson Palmer From Bengals at Trade Deadline

The deal was a bold one for both teams, but it was a steal for the Bengals. Their owner, Mike Brown, had vowed for months that he would let Palmer, a former Heisman Trophy winner who had grown disenchanted with the sometimes dysfunctional team that drafted him first over all in 2003, retire rather than trade him.

After Palmer demanded a trade, Brown maintained that there was a principle at stake, that players should honor the commitment to a team they made by signing a contract, even though those contracts are not guaranteed and teams can cut or trade players on a whim.

Palmer, who has never spoken publicly about the situation, sold his home in the Cincinnati area and had appeared willing to forfeit the $11 million in salary he was due. (His contract with the Bengals went through the 2014 season.) He essentially quit, and even in recent days, the Bengals said that they would not trade him.

Brown’s reputation for stubbornness paid off, allowing him to maintain bargaining leverage. That was enhanced when the rookie quarterback Andy Dalton led the Bengals to a 4-2 start and the Raiders’ starter, Jason Campbell, broke his collarbone Sunday, sending the Raiders scurrying for a new quarterback less than two weeks after the death of Al Davis.

In a statement, Brown referred to Dalton’s emergence as one reason the Bengals were willing to deal Palmer. “We also find ourselves rather suddenly in position of being able to receive real value for Carson that can measurably improve our team — which is performing well and is showing real promise for this year and years to come.”

The Raiders, with the first-year coach Hue Jackson now leading the way on personnel decisions, gave the Bengals their first-round draft pick in 2012 and a conditional draft pick in 2013 that is a second-rounder unless the Raiders win a playoff game, when it would become a first-rounder, according to Fox Sports, which first reported the trade.

“If you know Hue, you don’t get recruited any harder,” Palmer said. “For the past six weeks, I thought I was retired. Before the start of the season, I was training like it was a normal off-season. Week 1 hit, I thought I have got to find what the next phase of my life would be.

“I’m honored,” he added. “I don’t know a lot about this organization, but I know it’s dedicated to winning. I know where this organization has been and where it wants to get back to.”

After so many years of losing, the Raiders showed their players they were not willing to give up on the season. But the Raiders paid a staggering price for the 32-year-old Palmer, whose recent play has not approached his early success.

Palmer is a two-time Pro Bowler, but he missed much of the 2008 season with an elbow injury, and there have been concerns about diminished arm strength and accuracy ever since. During the lockout, many talent evaluators around the league doubted that Palmer would be worth even one first-round pick. Last season, he completed 61.8 percent of his passes for 26 touchdowns and 20 interceptions, matching a career high, as the Bengals sank to 4-12.

But Jackson has a long relationship with Palmer, whom he helped recruit at Southern California and whom he worked with when he was a receivers coach for the Bengals. And the Raiders are flush with speedy receivers who will present Palmer with viable options.

The Raiders’ next three games are against division rivals. After a game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, in which Kyle Boller will probably start, the Raiders have a bye, which would give Palmer three weeks of practice before starting against the Denver Broncos and then the San Diego Chargers.

Jackson was noncommittal about whether Palmer might play this week.

“Would this have happened if Jason was here?” Jackson said. “Probably not.”

The Raiders believe they can win now. At 4-2 and one game behind the Chargers, they may be right. They better be. The new collective bargaining agreement makes first-round picks economically friendly to teams, and the Raiders have potentially given up their next two. They currently do not have second-, third- and fourth-round picks in 2012. The fourth-rounder was given up for Campbell, who now becomes expendable. He will be a free agent next year.

And if Palmer does not play well, Jackson, who has gained significant influence within the Raiders in the wake of Davis’s death because of the team’s success, figures to lose some of his credibility on a team that will probably hire a general manager after the season.

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