CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Heading into Sunday’s N.F.C. championship game, Arizona’s Carson Palmer had been the forgotten man of the playoffs.
That’s a strange thing to say about a quarterback playing for a conference title, but in many ways it’s true.
No one is talking in reverential tones about the Carson Palmer legacy, at least not in the way people speak about the legacies of New England’s Tom Brady and Denver’s Peyton Manning.
No one is suggesting that Palmer is transforming the quarterback position as they do with Carolina’s Cam Newton.
The only question anyone had asked about Palmer after 13 seasons in the N.