Carson Palmer Last Quotations

Hopefully this is the last place I'll end up playing. That's so rare in this league these days. It's so rare to see a person have a five-, eight-, 10-, 12-year career in one place. And I feel very fortunate that it looks like that's going to be my future.

I think if we've talked about anything it's that we're not going to approach this as any other week, as any different game. Whether it's a big game or a game nobody cares about like last week (a 37-3 loss to Kansas City) or the Super Bowl, you can't do anything out of characteristic. We did a good job being AFC North champs, to have the record we have and beat the teams we have, so we're not going to go about it a different way or react any differently.

I take a lot of heat because guys say, 'You're lucky you don't have to run today,' but when you're in the position I'm in and you're hurt that's when you want to be running. I wish I could be out there running. It's like that for everyone in the season. When (tight end) Reggie (Kelly) broke his hand last year, he was standing on the sideline and some people were jealous of him, but there's nothing more he'd rather been doing than practicing.

We realize our offense got a lot of guys back, and we've done a lot of things to improve our defense, ... We were 8-8 last year. We need to step up from there. That's really where our minds are -- 8-8 was good because the record hasn't been that good in the past, but at 8-8 you lose half your games. That's nothing to write home about, nothing to be proud of. We're definitely expecting to take drastic steps from last year into this year.

I've been given a lot of freedom as far as that's concerned, but no more freedom than I had last year, ... It's the quarterback's job to get you in the right play. That's just part of my role. If anything, I'm just more experienced doing it.

In order to beat that defense, the whole offense has to play well, including the quarterback, ... The last couple of times we've played them, the offense played well but I didn't. A lot of it falls on me and puts a lot more pressure on me.