The Cardinals have more than a week to go before they play their first playoff game, but it doesn’t appear that they’ll have to spend much of that time worrying about quarterback Carson Palmer’s dislocated right index finger.
Palmer suffered the injury in Week 15 against the Eagles and the resulting changes to his throwing motion caused soreness in his lat muscle leading into last Sunday’s game against the Seahawks. Palmer did not play well in the first half of that game and spent the second half of the blowout loss on the bench.
On Wednesday, though, Palmer said that the finger is “feeling much better” and coach Bruce Arians said that a new taping job on the finger has alleviated the concern about further issues.
“For a quarterback, it’s a weird feeling and it worried him some,” Arians said, via the Arizona Republic. “But once we readjusted the tape job so that he could use his finger and come off the ball last, the soreness went away and he’s really good right now.”
The bye week should be a help for any Cardinals players dealing with nagging injuries, but few are as important to their chances of winning as Palmer.