Alex Smith and Carson Palmer and How They Will Impact Their New Teams

This offseason we saw two struggling franchises land quality veteran quarterbacks, Alex Smith was traded from the Raiders to the Cardinals and Alex Smith went from the 49ers to the Chiefs.  They both improve their new teams QB situations, and last year both the Cardinals and 49ers had pathetic QB play.

Alex Smith makes the Chiefs a playoff team (of course Andy Reid now being the coach helps as well), he brings leadership, has dealt with much adversity and most importantly is a smart decision maker which is something that Matt Cassell and Brad Quinn lacked last season.  Alex also has playoff experience making his pairing with Andy Reid that much easier, Smith is the perfect fit for this team, they have a strong run game, and that is what Smith needs.  The 2011 and 2012 seasons were Smith’s best in the NFL, in a total of 26 regular season games his passing numbers are: 30 touchdowns to 10 interceptions and 4,881 yards. 

Last season the Chiefs ranked dead last in the NFL in passing yards with 2,713 yards and had 8 touchdowns to 20 interceptions, clearly Smith makes this team better and those numbers WILL improve for the Chiefs this season.  I think Alex Smith will lead this team to the playoffs and maybe a AFC West crown because the Broncos team keeps having its injuries piling up.

Carson Palmer adds stability to the Cardinals quarterback situation which was despicable last year, they had four starting QBs and they totaled for the following statistics: 11 touchdowns, 21 interceptions and 3,005 passing yards.  With four quarterbacks starting that only makes these numbers worse, I remember 

watching their games and just was in awe of how pathetic their QB play was.  Carson Palmer had 4,018 passing yards which ranked 10^th in the NFL and had 22 touchdowns to 14 interceptions as well, these numbers are much better than those of the Cardinals last season, and he did it without a true number one receiver.

He now has Larry Fitzgerald catching his passes and also a stout defense to help him out as well, this is the kind of team Palmer fits on perfectly.  He had his best years when Chad Johnson was a top receiver when they were both in Cincinnati so I can only imagine what he and Fitzgerald can do together.  This team will probably be 7-9 or 8-8 because of how difficult the division is and also because the Cardinals still need to figure out a solid run game to help make the team better (they ranked last in the 2012 season in running). 

I think both of these QBs will have a tremendous impact on their respective teams