Cardinals

his quarterback the whole play call via the headset.

Shanahan explained his reasoning to reporters a few weeks ago:

“Sometimes when you put that on quarterbacks, you put more pressure on – ‘Hey, here’s the number, but if you’re on the right hash you’ve got to say all this stuff the other way. You’ve got to say it “left” instead of “right,” you’ve got to say “three jet” instead of “two jet,” you’ve got to say “19” instead of “18.” ’

“In the heat of battle, sometimes that can get tough for a guy. It gets tough for a play caller also, but if you’re doing it all the time all week for most of your life, you get better at it. I’d just rather a quarterback worry about all the hard stuff.”

Over the years, Arians has been willing to adjust to his quarterback’s preferences. When he was playing for the Steelers, Cardinals quarterbacks coach Byron Leftwich liked hearing the entire call from Arians, the offensive coordinator.

It helped Leftwich visualize the play, and he wore the wristband just for emergencies.

Palmer, in contrast, likes to visualize the play as he reads it to himself.

“As I’m reading it, I’m seeing a diagram of the play, and sometimes I’ll have flashbacks to plays we’ve run previously,” he said.

Palmer and backup Drew Stanton spend hours during a week prepping themselves to call plays to their 10 offensive teammates. Palmer practices flipping the play by reading it out loud to himself the night before a game and then again on game day. It can, he admitted, look strange. “I’m weird, I guess,” Palmer said. The toughest part, he said, is flipping the play.

“You have to flip the formation, you have to flip the protection, flip the primary receiver’s route, flip which way the line is going,” he said. “You might have to go right to left, 62 to 63, or ‘rip’ to ‘liz’. I spend a lot of time during the week practicing it so I’m not looking at it for the first time on Sunday with 12 minutes to go in the first quarter.”

Cardinals quarterbacks have considerable input into the weekly game plans, telling Arians their preferences in specific situations, such as red zone, goal line and third down. So it’s unusual for them to be surprised by one of Arians’ play calls, but accidents do happen.

“It’s an intricate thing,” Stanton said. “There’s sometimes where your finger will slip and and all of a sudden you’re down one more play and you’re like, ‘Wait a minute.’ Sometimes you just roll with it.”