Raiders: 5 questions for Carson Palmer

Raiders QB Carson Palmer is on pace to break his all-time passing yards for a season. He faces a Chiefs' team that boasts some star-power on defense. (US Presswire)

Raiders quarterback Carson Palmer has passed for 1,732 yards and is on pace to throw for a career-high 4,619 yards. He'll try to add to his passing totals Sunday at Kansas City against a struggling Chiefs team that is 1-5 but ranks a decent 13th against the pass and has some star-power on defense.

In his first game as a Raider last year -- five days after being traded to Oakland -- Palmer came off the bench in the second half of a 28-0 loss to Kansas City in Week 7 and threw three picks. In the rematch at Kansas City on Dec. 24, he completed 16 of 26 passes for 237 yards and one TD with two interceptions in a 16-13 in overtime win.

Question: What do you see when you watch the Chiefs on tape? What jumps out at you?

Palmer: "The first thing that jumps out at you is you look at their record and you watch them play, and you look at the personnel they have. They've lost some weird games in really kind of some weird ways, but defensively, personnel-wise, it's a very, very good group. Personnel-wise as good as there is in the NFL. Coach says there are six first-round draft picks, a handful of guys that have been to the Pro Bowl and four guys drafted in the top five or 10 picks. So it's a very, very gifted group. A very talented group that's desperate for a win coming off a bye. It's going to be an extremely physical game and we've got our mind set for that and we're ready for that. But it's going to be a battle. It's going to be a four-quarter battle."

Question: What did you learn from the two games you played against them last year?

Palmer: "I felt the physicalness of the game. It's a really good front seven. A big, physical front seven. With a safety (Eric Berry) that was a top five draft pick that went to the Pro Bowl his rookie year that's now coming back -- so he's being added to the team -- that I didn't play against last year. But just, an in-division game. It's a big-time rivalry. It means a lot to that city. It obviously means a lot to the Raider Nation. So their fans will be ready for us. It's not going to be nice and quiet and easy. They're going to make it difficult on us."

Question: One of the questions you hear most often from fans lately on Twitter is, 'Why don't they just run ho-huddle all the time if they're so good at it?' Is that viable at all?

Palmer: "No. If that's all you're going to come into the game with you completely limit yourself, from personnel groups, to formations, to protections, red zone, third down, backed up. It's not feasible. It's a good change-up. It's a good change of pace thing for us. It gets us out of a rut every once in awhile and it also keeps a defense on their toes and keeps a defense preparing for it. But it's not something that you can just run all the time."

Question: What's the key to getting the regular offense going and not getting in a rut?

Palmer: "The first thing is to run the football and be more effective running the ball. We have to do that. We know that. It starts with me in my tracks and getting the ball to the back deep enough, then goes to the offensive line giving Darren chances, and Darren making his reads and receivers blocking downfield. Again, back to me, audiblizing if it's a bad look to run into. So it's not one person or one position group or one thing. It's a collective effort and we've got to get better, because once that gets going, then the play-action, and the nakeds and the bootlegs and the shots downfield really start to open up for you."

Question: How much has switching to no-huddle during the course of the game helped you in two-minute and crunch-time situations because in the three close games, you've been very proficient at the end?

Palmer: "Every game we've been in, we've been pretty efficient in the two-minute offense. We've had success in no-huddle. We've not had success in no-huddle. I just think it's something, you change it up, you do it for a series here, and a series there, and the defense isn't quite ready for it. But that up-tempo style, we have a bunch of young guys on offense that have fresh legs. When you play an older defense it works really well, too. It's a good change-up for us and we've been successful in it, but like I said there's been times we haven't been successful."

Follow Raiders reporter Eric Gilmore on Twitter @CBSRaiders.