The Cardinals have a lot of experience replacing injured players.
This season has found them scrambling to find fill-ins for starters all over the roster at various points in the season and they’ve done it well enough to win eight of their first nine games of the season. The most recent win came against the Rams on Sunday and it came after the team had to replace quarterback Carson Palmer, who they fear tore his ACL. Coach Bruce Arians admitted after the game that replacing the quarterback is a bit different than injuries at other positions.
“Anytime your quarterback goes down and he gets hit like that, you think it’s going to be serious,” Arians said, via ESPN.com. “I wanted to go out and just see. It’s always different for your quarterback than it is for anybody else. It’s always next man up, but for me it’s a little bit different.”
The Cardinals didn’t miss a beat on Sunday, just as they didn’t when Drew Stanton was starting three games earlier this year while Palmer was out with a nerve injury. The confidence gained from that earlier experience should help Stanton and the rest of the Cardinals transition to life without Palmer quickly, something that’s vital with the Lions and Seahawks up in the next two weeks for a team trying to hold onto the top spot in the NFC.