College football: Ranking the NFL careers of Heisman Trophy winners 1975-2005

Ranking NFL careers of Heisman winners: 5. Carson Palmer, QB, USC

Carson Palmer is another player who had a great career that was mostly forgettable. Does that make sense? Palmer was really, really good when he was playing, but if you asked someone “who are some of the best quarterbacks of the 2000s”, his name likely doesn’t come up a lot. That shouldn’t take away from his accomplishments on the field.

At USC, Palmer took seemingly forever to show his true talent. He was there for five years, suffered multiple injuries, but once he really took to the Pete Carroll offense, he was impossible to stop. His senior year was a smoke show. He doubled his career high in touchdowns with 33 and broke 3,900 passing yards. That earned him the Heisman Trophy and the number-one overall pick to the Cincinnati Bengals.

Palmer spent a year learning the offense under Marvin Lewis and starting quarterback Jon Kitna. He was given the starting job in his second year, and he was looking to turn around a historically terrible franchise in the Bengals. Palmer helped lead the Bengals to an 8-8 season his first year as the starter. He led the Bengals to their first winning season in 15 years when he went 11-5 in 2005. He suffered a brutal knee injury on the first play of the playoffs, and he was back to rehab.

His career with the Bengals would be volatile overall, and he eventually forced a trade to the Oakland Raiders. He ended up revitalizing his career in his second season in Oakland, and he continued that when he went to Arizona. Palmer ended his career with more than 46,000 yards and 294 touchdowns.