It's been a long career for the arizona cardinals quarterback, but after 15 seasons in the NFL, Carson Palmer announced his retirement on Tuesday, January 2.

The announcement came just a day after Arizona's Bruce Arians announced his own retirement after five years as head coach. Palmer and Arians both went to the Cardinals in 2013 and brought the winning tradition back to Arizona.

The team went to the playoffs twice, in 2014 and 2015, though they were missing Palmer- who went 6-0- for the majority of the 2014 season. The team has slowed down, going 15-16-1 in the past two seasons, and they will now move forward in need of a head coach and quarterback.

Palmer's career

Carson Palmer, before his retirement, was one of the oldest active quarterbacks in the league at the age of 38, only younger than Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Josh McCown. He was drafted as the number one overall pick by the Cincinnati Bengals in 2003 and spent the entire season on the bench behind Jon Kitna. He spent the first eight seasons of his career there, with a record of 46-51, leading the Bengals to two postseason appearances.

He did not win a single playoff game in Cincinnati, but who knows what might have happened if he didn't get injured to start off the 2005 postseason.

In 2011, Palmer was traded to the Oakland Raiders where he had virtually no success, going 8-16 in two seasons and not even seeing the playing field until week seven into his first season there.

He did help the Raiders finish 8-8 in 2011 which almost made them division champions, but they lost in a three-way tie with the Denver Broncos and San Diego Chargers.

In 2013, he was then sent to the Cardinals where he teamed up with Bruce Arians and they brought success to Arizona.

In his five years as a Cardinal, Palmer went 38-21-1 and helped the team to two playoff appearances, though he only played in six games in one of those seasons. In 2014, Palmer went 6-0 to help the Cardinals go to the playoffs, but re-tore his ACL in week ten after already missing three games earlier that season. The Cardinals lost in the Wildcard round of the playoffs without Palmer and their backup Drew Stanton. In 2015, Palmer led Arizona to a 13-3 record and the number two seed in the NFC playoffs.

With that, they went on to beat the Green Bay Packers for Palmer's first playoff win, but they got blown out by the Carolina Panthers in the Conference Championship.

The rest was downhill for Palmer as his team went 7-8-1 in 2016 and 8-8 in 2017, though he only played in the first seven weeks of the season.

Palmer ended his career with a 92-88-1 record.

Hall of Fame

Carson Palmer has a decent resume for a quarterback for who has had little postseason success and a record just over .500. He ended his career 12th in passing yardage, 11th in pass completions, and 12th in passing touchdowns, but despite all of that, I don't think that he has a place in the Hall of Fame.

There are many people on the all-time passing leaders list that find themselves below Palmer, but this is due to the era Palmer played in.

There are five active players - Tom Brady, Philip Rivers, Eli Manning, Ben Roethlisberger, and Drew Brees - that are already above Palmer in all of these stats that all have better Hall of Fame cases than Palmer. Aaron Rodgers is also climbing up to surpass him, though he has already surpassed him in touchdowns, and Matt Ryan is on his way as well.

Another thing to look at when inducting quarterbacks into the Hall of Fame are multiple Super Bowl wins.

Palmer has none and hasn't even reached a Super Bowl. Unless your other stats or on-field abilities are so overwhelming, for example, Dan Marino, then it is difficult to get into Canton with anything less than two Super Bowl wins. Palmer is not a superstar and there may have been one point that he was elite, but Hall of Fame quarterbacks are elite throughout their careers.

The resume he has earned due to the era of the game might help his case and put him into consideration to be a Hall of Famer, but I don't think it'll be enough to get him in.

For what it's worth, Palmer has had a solid career and it was fun watching him through his 15-year career.
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED